Math History

We live in the age of the algorithm. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives—where we go to school, whether we get a loan, how much we pay for insurance—are being made not by humans, but by mathematical models. In theory, this should lead to greater fairness: everyone is judged according to the same rules and bias is eliminated. And yet, as Cathy O'Neil reveals in this urgent and necessary book, the opposite is true. The models being used today are opaque, unregulated and incontestable, even when they're wrong. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination. 

This ten-part history of mathematics reveals the personalities behind the calculations: the passions and rivalries of mathematicians struggling to get their ideas heard. Professor Marcus du Sautoy shows how these masters of abstraction find a role in the real world and proves that mathematics is...

Whether pondering black holes or predicting discoveries at CERN, physicists believe the best theories are beautiful, natural, and elegant, and this standard separates popular theories from disposable ones. This is why, Sabine Hossenfelder argues, we have not seen a major breakthrough in the foundations of physics for more than four decades. The belief in beauty has become so dogmatic that it now conflicts with scientific objectivity: Observation has been unable to confirm mindboggling theories, like supersymmetry or grand unification, invented by physicists based on aesthetic criteria.

Max Tegmark leads us on an astonishing journey through past, present and future, and through the physics, astronomy and mathematics that are the foundation of his work, most particularly his hypothesis that our physical reality is a mathematical structure and his theory of the ultimate...

Math has a reputation for being inaccessible. People think that it requires a special gift or that comprehension is a matter of genes. Yet, the greatest mathematicians throughout history, from Rene Descartes to Alexander Grothendieck, have insisted that this is not the case.

From Leonardo Da Vinci to John Dee and Comenius, from George Eliot to Oliver Sacks and Susan Sontag, polymaths have moved the frontiers of knowledge in countless ways. But history can be unkind to scholars with such encyclopaedic interests. All too often these individuals are remembered for just one part of their valuable achievements. In this engaging, erudite account, renowned cultural historian Peter Burke argues for a more rounded view. 

Brought to you by Penguin. The complexity of mathematics - its abstract rules and obscure symbols - can seem very distant from the everyday. There are those things that are real and present, it is supposed, and then there are mathematical concepts: creations of our mind, mysterious tools for...

Brought to you by Penguin. The only numbers in this book are the page numbers. Math Without Numbers is a vivid and wholly original guide to the three main branches of abstract math - topology, analysis, and algebra - which turn out to be surprisingly easy to grasp. Milo Beckman upends the...

Wielding his widely recognized powers of explanation, Paul Krugman lays bare the hidden facts behind the $2 trillion tax cut. With huge budget surpluses just ahead, the question of whether to cut taxes has shifted to when? and by how much? With Fuzzy Math, Paul Krugman dissects the Bush tax...

FROM ONE OF THE MOST BRILLIANT MINDS OF OUR TIME COMES A BOOK THAT CLARIFIES HIS MOST IMPORTANT IDEAS Stephen Hawking’s worldwide bestseller A Brief History of Time remains a landmark volume in scientific writing. But for readers who have asked for a more accessible formulation of its key...

Stephen Hawking has dazzled readers worldwide with a string of bestsellers exploring the mysteries of the universe. Now, for the first time, perhaps the most brilliant cosmologist of our age turns his gaze inward for a revealing look at his own life and intellectual evolution. My Brief...

The book Scripts and Songs on Science and Math 2 is a collection for school-age students that covers the variety of topics in science with the help of musical theatrical plays and material. They were created to help learn science by singing. It includes scripts about the creation of the periodic table of the chemical elements by Mendeleyev, the invention of the microscope by A. Leeuwenhoek in biology, the discovery of Newton’s Laws, developing Algebra, and other science-math topics. The songs and scripts speak to both the mind and heart.

A pattern is a repeated design that is found everywhere in our world and even in outer space. All around you are both simple patterns and complicated patterns. The spiral of a seashell is very complex. But, there are patterns more complicated than a seashell. When did humans discover or invent patterns? There are cave paintings that are around 10,000 years old. They show hands in a pattern with 5 fingers.