Does 2 + 2 = 4? Ask almost anyone and the answer will be an unequivocal yes. A basic equation such as this seems the very definition of certainty, but how is this so?
In this captivating book, Helen Verran addresses precisely that question by looking at how science, mathematics, and logic come to life in Yoruba primary schools. Drawing on her experience as a teacher in Nigeria, Verran describes how she went from the radical conclusion that logic and math are culturally relative, to determining what Westerners find so disconcerting about Yoruba logic and to a new understanding of all generalizing logic. She reveals that in contrast to the one-to-many model found in Western number systems, Yoruba thinking operates by figuring things as wholes and their parts. Quantity is not absolute but always relational. Certainty derives not from abstract logic, but from cultural practice and association.
A powerful story of how one woman's investigation into an everyday African situation led to extraordinary conclusions about the nature of numbers, generalization, and certainty, this book will be a signal contribution to philosophy, anthropology of science, and education.

The secret of constellations, the enigma of the golden mean, and the brilliance of a proof-these are just some of the wonders Clawson explores with unbridled delight in this recreational math book. Throughout the book he divulges the wisdom of the ancient Greeks, Sumerians, Babylonians, and Egyptians, whose stunning revelations still have deep meaning today.Transporting us beyond mere appreciation, Clawson urges us to tackle functions, tangents, and the concept of infinity. He helps us intuitively comprehend these and other building blocks of mathematics through explaining their discovery and uses. By accompanying him on his journey, we taste the fruit of knowledge that has eluded us until now.

Simply put, an algorithm is a set of instructions-it's the code that makes computers run. A basic idea that proved elusive for hundreds of years and bent the minds of the greatest thinkers in the world, the algorithm is what made the modern world possible. Without the algorithm, there would have been no computer, no Internet, no virtual reality, no e-mail, or any other technological advance that we rely on every day.
In "The Advent of the Algorithm, " David Berlinski combines science, history, and math to explain and explore the intriguing story of how the algorithm was finally discovered by a succession of mathematicians and logicians, and how this paved the way for the digital age. Beginning with Leibniz and culminating in the middle of the twentieth century with the groundbreaking work of Godel and Turing, The "Advent of the Algorithm "is an epic tale told with clarity and imaginative brilliance.

Robert W. Batterman's monograph examines a ubiquitous methodology in physics and the science of materials that has virtually been ignored in the philosophical literature. This method focuses on mesoscale structures as a means for investigating complex many-body systems. It challenges foundational pictures of physics where the most important properties are taken to be found at lower, more fundamental scales. This so-called "hydrodynamic approach" has its origins in Einstein's pioneering work on Brownian motion. This work can be understood to be one of the first instances of "upscaling" or homogenization whereby values for effective continuum scale parameters can be theoretically determined. Einstein also provided the first statement of what came to be called the "Fluctuation-Dissipation" theorem. This theorem justifies the use of equilibrium statistical mechanics to study the nonequilibrium behaviors of many-body systems. Batterman focuses on the consequences of the Fluctuation-Dissipation theorem for a proper understanding of what can be considered natural parameters or natural kinds for studying behaviors of such systems. He challenges various claims that such natural, or joint carving, parameters are always to be found at the most fundamental level. Overall, Batterman argues for mesoscale first, middle-out approach to many questions concerning the relationships between fundamental theories and their phenomenological, continuum scale cousins.

What two things could be more different than numbers and stories? Numbers are abstract, certain, and eternal, but to most of us somewhat dry and bloodless. Good stories are full of life: they engage our emotions and have subtlety and nuance, but they lack rigor and the truths they tell are elusive and subject to debate. As ways of understanding the world around us, numbers and stories seem almost completely incompatible. Once Upon a Number shows that stories and numbers aren't as different as you might imagine, and in fact they have surprising and fascinating connections. The concepts of logic and probability both grew out of intuitive ideas about how certain situations would play out. Now, logicians are inventing ways to deal with real world situations by mathematical means,by acknowledging, for instance, that items that are mathematically interchangeable may not be interchangeable in a story. And complexity theory looks at both number strings and narrative strings in remarkably similar terms.Throughout, renowned author John Paulos mixes numbers and narratives in his own delightful style. Along with lucid accounts of cutting-edge information theory we get hilarious anecdotes and jokes instructions for running a truly impressive pyramid scam a freewheeling conversation between Groucho Marx and Bertrand Russell (while they're stuck in an elevator together) explanations of why the statistical evidence against OJ Simpson was overwhelming beyond doubt and how the Unabomber's thinking shows signs of mathematical training and dozens of other treats. This is another winner from America's favourite mathematician.

Learning and Doing MathematicsSecond EditionJohn Mason, formerly Professor of Mathematical Education at the Open UniversityLearning and Doing is for anyone keen to develop learning skills or to enhance their problem-solving powers. It will help you develop your own strategies by recognising blockages and then using the techniques of generalizing and specializing to identify routes to a solution. Examples are varied. Many are mathematical in flavour, but they are accessible to anyone with an interest in the subject and the methods proposed apply across the curriculum and indeed to everyday situations in modern life. Developed at the Open University, all the material is tried and tested. Professor Mason's style is relaxed and colloquial - accessible to all, whether a teacher wanting to use it for examples and fresh ways to inspire, or a parent or student wanted to boost their learning and broaden their mathematical thinking. Contents: Specializing Generalizing Specializing and Generalizing Together Convincing Yourself and Others When is an Argument Valid? Further Food for Thought Five Interludes are presented between the chapter - to provoke practical mathematical thinking, and have some fun.Reviews of the First Edition"An excellent resource...an impressive, carefully chosen array of examples...I will certainly recommend it." John Baylis, The Mathematical Gazette"Fresh, lively and energetic...we should buy his] books before they are banned."Ralph Schwarzenberger, Mathematics Teaching

The Number Sense is an enlightening exploration of the mathematical mind. Describing experiments that show that human infants have a rudimentary number sense, Stanislas Dehaene suggests that this sense is as basic as our perception of color, and that it is wired into the brain. Dehaene shows that it was the invention of symbolic systems of numerals that started us on the climb to higher mathematics. A fascinating look at the crossroads where numbers and neurons intersect, The Number Sense offers an intriguing tour of how the structure of the brain shapes our mathematical abilities, and how our mathematics opens up a window on the human mind.

"Casti Tours offers the most spectacular vistas of modern applied mathematics" Nature
Mathematical modeling is about rules the rules of reality. Reality Rules explores the syntax and semantics of the language in which these rules are written, the language of mathematics. Characterized by the clarity and vision typical of the author's previous books, Reality Rules is a window onto the competing dialects of this language in the form of mathematical models of real-world phenomena that researchers use today to frame their views of reality.
Moving from the irreducible basics of modeling to the upper reaches of scientific and philosophical speculation, Volumes 1 and 2, The Fundamentals and The Frontier, are ideal complements, equally matched in difficulty, yet unique in their coverage of issues central to the contemporary modeling of complex systems.
Engagingly written and handsomely illustrated, Reality Rules is a fascinating journey into the conceptual underpinnings of reality itself, one that examines the major themes in dynamical system theory and modeling and the issues related to mathematical models in the broader contexts of science and philosophy. Far-reaching and far-sighted, Reality Rules is destined to shape the insight and work of students, researchers, and scholars in mathematics, science, and the social sciences for generations to come.
Of related interest . . .
ALTERNATE REALITIES
Mathematical Models of Nature and Man
John L. Casti
A thoroughly modern account of the theory and practice of mathematical modeling with a treatment focusing on system-theoretic concepts such as complexity, self-organization, adaptation, bifurcation, resilience, surprise and uncertainty, and the mathematical structures needed to employ these in a formal system.
An Instructor's Manual presenting detailed solutions to all the problems in the book is available from the Wiley editorial department.

Widespread interest in Frege's general philosophical writings is, relatively speaking, a fairly recent phenomenon. But it is only very recently that his philosophy of mathematics has begun to attract the attention it now enjoys. This interest has been elicited by the discovery of the remarkable mathematical properties of Frege's contextual definition of number and of the unique character of his proposals for a theory of the real numbers.

This collection of essays addresses three main developments in recent work on Frege's philosophy of mathematics: the emerging interest in the intellectual background to his logicism; the rediscovery of Frege's theorem; and the reevaluation of the mathematical content of" The Basic Laws of Arithmetic," Each essay attempts a sympathetic, if not uncritical, reconstruction, evaluation, or extension of a facet of Frege's theory of arithmetic. Together they form an accessible and authoritative introduction to aspects of Frege's thought that have, until now, been largely missed by the philosophical community.

No one has figured more prominently in the study of the German philosopher Gottlob Frege than Michael Dummett. His magisterial "Frege: Philosophy of Language" is a sustained, systematic analysis of Frege's thought, omitting only the issues in philosophy of mathematics. In this work Dummett discusses, section by section, Frege's masterpiece" The Foundations of Arithmetic" and Frege's treatment of real numbers in the second volume of "Basic Laws of Arithmetic," establishing what parts of the philosopher's views can be salvaged and employed in new theorizing, and what must be abandoned, either as incorrectly argued or as untenable in the light of technical developments.

Gottlob Frege (1848-1925) was a logician, mathematician, and philosopher whose work had enormous impact on Bertrand Russell and later on the young Ludwig Wittgenstein, making Frege one of the central influences on twentieth-century Anglo-American philosophy; he is considered the founder of analytic philosophy. His philosophy of mathematics contains deep insights and remains a useful and necessary point of departure for anyone seriously studying or working in the field.

John D. Barrow's Pi in the Sky is a profound -- and profoundly different -- exploration of the world of mathematics: where it comes from, what it is, and where it's going to take us if we follow it to the limit in our search for the ultimate meaning of the universe. Barrow begins by investigating whether math is a purely human invention inspired by our practical needs. Or is it something inherent in nature waiting to be discovered?
In answering these questions, Barrow provides a bridge between the usually irreconcilable worlds of mathematics and theology. Along the way, he treats us to a history of counting all over the world, from Egyptian hieroglyphics to logical friction, from number mysticism to Marxist mathematics. And he introduces us to a host of peculiar individuals who have thought some of the deepest and strangest thoughts that human minds have ever thought, from Lao-Tse to Robert Pirsig, Charles Darwin, and Umberto Eco. Barrow thus provides the historical framework and the intellectual tools necessary to an understanding of some of today's weightiest mathematical concepts.

"History and Philosophy of Modern Mathematics " was first published in 1988. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

The fourteen essays in this volume build on the pioneering effort of Garrett Birkhoff, professor of mathematics at Harvard University, who in 1974 organized a conference of mathematicians and historians of modern mathematics to examine how the two disciplines approach the history of mathematics. In "History and Philosophy of Modern Mathematics," William Aspray and Philip Kitcher bring together distinguished scholars from mathematics, history, and philosophy to assess the current state of the field. Their essays, which grow out of a 1985 conference at the University of Minnesota, develop the basic premise that mathematical thought needs to be studied from an interdisciplinary perspective.

The opening essays study issues arising within logic and the foundations of mathematics, a traditional area of interest to historians and philosophers. The second section examines issues in the history of mathematics within the framework of established historical periods and questions. Next come case studies that illustrate the power of an interdisciplinary approach to the study of mathematics. The collection closes with a look at mathematics from a sociohistorical perspective, including the way institutions affect what constitutes mathematical knowledge.

This major survey of mathematics, featuring the work of 18 outstanding Russian mathematicians and including material on both elementary and advanced levels, encompasses 20 prime subject areas in mathematics in terms of their simple origins and their subsequent sophisticated development.

Originaltext mit ausfuhrlichen mathematischen sowie historischen Kommentaren von Eberhard Knobloch und aktualisierter UEbersetzung von Otto Hamborg "De quadratura arithmetica circuli" (1676) von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz ist eines der bedeutendsten Werke in der Analysis. Dieser Meilenstein der Mathematik- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte behandelt die arithmetische Kreisquadratur, also die Berechnung der Kreisflache mittels einer konvergenten, unendlichen Reihe rationaler Zahlen, Zykloide, Paraboloide, Hyperboloide, Logarithmusfunktionen usf. Die Schrift legte die Grundlagen insbesondere fur die Differential- und Integralrechnung, wie wir sie noch heute lernen und verwenden. Unter Berufung auf archimedische Strenge lehrt sie mit Hilfe der wohl definierten Begriffe "unendlich klein" und "unendlich gross" an Hand der Kurventheorie, wie mit dem Unendlichen in der Mathematik umzugehen ist. Kurven sind danach nichts anderes als Polygone mit unendlich vielen, unendlich kleinen Seiten. Die programmatischen Aussagen dieser Schrift sind grundlegend fur die Philosophie und die Grundlagen der Mathematik.

From WW2 code-breaker to Artificial Intelligence - a fascinating account of the remarkable Alan Turing.

Alan Turing's 1936 paper On Computable Numbers was a landmark of twentieth-century thought. It not only provided the principle of the post-war computer, but also gave an entirely new approach to the philosophy of the mind.

Influenced by his crucial codebreaking work during the war, and by practical pioneering of the first electronic computers, Turing argued that all the operations of the mind could be performed by computers. His thesis is the cornerstone of modern Artificial Intelligence.

Andrew Hodges gives a fresh analysis of Turing's work, relating it to his extraordinary life.

Brilliant introduction to the philosophy of mathematics, from the question 'what is a number?' up to the concept of infinity, descriptions, classes and axioms Russell deploys all his skills and brilliant prose to write an introductory book - a real gem by one of the 20th century's most celebrated philosophers New foreword by Michael Potter to the Routledge Classics edition places the book in helpful context and explains why it's a classic

We live an information-soaked existence - information pours into our lives through television, radio, books, and of course, the Internet. Some say we suffer from 'infoglut'. But what is information? The concept of 'information' is a profound one, rooted in mathematics, central to whole branches of science, yet with implications on every aspect of our everyday lives: DNA provides the information to create us; we learn through the information fed to us; we relate to each other through information transfer - gossip, lectures, reading. Information is not only a mathematically powerful concept, but its critical role in society raises wider ethical issues: who owns information? Who controls its dissemination? Who has access to information? Luciano Floridi, a philosopher of information, cuts across many subjects, from a brief look at the mathematical roots of information - its definition and measurement in 'bits'- to its role in genetics (we are information), and its social meaning and value. He ends by considering the ethics of information, including issues of ownership, privacy, and accessibility; copyright and open source. For those unfamiliar with its precise meaning and wide applicability as a philosophical concept, 'information' may seem a bland or mundane topic. Those who have studied some science or philosophy or sociology will already be aware of its centrality and richness. But for all readers, whether from the humanities or sciences, Floridi gives a fascinating and inspirational introduction to this most fundamental of ideas. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

In 1983 Gerry Kennedy set off on a tour through Russia, China, Japan and the USA to visit others involved in the global anti-war movement. Only dimly aware of his Victorian ancestors: George Boole, forefather of the digital revolution and James Hinton, eccentric philosopher and advocate of polygamy, he had directly followed in the footsteps of two dynasties of radical thinkers and doers.Their notable achievements, in which the women were particularly prominent, involved many spheres. Boole's wife, Mary Everest, niece of George Everest, surveyor of the eponymous mountain, was an early advocate of hands-on education. Of the five talented Boole daughters, Ethel Voynich, wife of the discoverer of the enigmatic, still unexplained Voynich Manuscript, campaigned with Russian anarchists to overthrow the Tsar. Her 1897 novel The Gadfly, filmed later with music by Shostakovich, sold in millions behind the Iron Curtain. She was rumoured to have had an affair with the notorious 'Ace of Spies', Sidney Reilly. One of Ethel's sisters married Charles Howard Hinton: a leading exponent of the esoteric realm of the fourth dimension and inventor of the gunpowder baseball-pitcher.Of their descendants, Carmelita Hinton also pioneered progressive education in the USA at her school in Putney, Vermont. Her children dedicated their lives to Mao's China. Appalled by the dropping on Japan of the atomic bomb that she had helped design, Joan Hinton defected to China and actively engaged in the Cultural Revolution. William Hinton wrote the influential documentary Fanshen based on his experience in 1948 of revolutionary change in a Shanxi village. Other members of the clan became renowned in their fields of physics, entomology and botany. Their combined legacy of independent and constructive thinking is perhaps typified by the invention of the Jungle Gym: the climbing-frame now used by children the world over. In The Booles and the Hintons the author embarks on a quest to reveal the stories behind their remarkable lives.

The Calculus Collection is a useful resource for everyone who teaches calculus, in secondary school or in a college or university. It consists of 123 articles selected by a panel of veteran secondary school teachers. The articles focus on engaging students who are meeting the core ideas of calculus for the first time and who are interested in a deeper understanding of single-variable calculus. The Calculus Collection is filled with insights, alternative explanations of difficult ideas, and suggestions for how to take a standard problem and open it up to the rich mathematical explorations available when you encourage students to dig a little deeper. Some of the articles reflect an enthusiasm for bringing calculators and computers into the classroom, while others consciously address themes from the calculus reform movement. But most of the articles are simply interesting and timeless explorations of the mathematics encountered in a first course in calculus.

From the Preface: The longest paper in volume I is 'On the Theory of the Syzygetic Relations of Two Rational Integral Functions, comprising an application to the Theory of Sturm's Functions', and to this many of the shorter papers in the volume are contributory...the volume contains also Sylvester's dialytic method of elimination, his Essay on Canonical Forms, and early investigations in the theory of Invariants. It also contains celebrated theorems as to Determinants and investigations as to the Transformation of Quadratic Forms and the recognition of the Invariant factors of a matrix.Among the Papers contained in Volume 2 are the author's Lecture on Geometry, delivered before the Gresham Committee, the author's seven lectures on the Partition of Numbers, in outline, the long memoir on Newton's Rule, the Presidential Address to the Mathematical and Physical section of the British Association at Exeter, and a set of papers 'Nugae Mathematicae.'Volume 3 deals very largely with the author's enumerative method of obtaining the complete system of concomitants of a system of quantics, with the help of generating functions; the brief but very luminous papers...on the Constructive Theory of Partitions. ..his Commemoration Day Address at Johns Hopkins University (1877)...investigations on chemistry and algebra, the paper on Certain Ternary Cubic-Form Equations, and the paper on Subinvariants and Perpetuants.Volume 4 contains Sylvester's Constructive Theory of Partitions, papers on Binary Matrices, and the Lectures on the Theory of Reciprocants. There is an added Index to the four volumes, and Biographical Notice of Sylvester.

A mathematical sightseeing tour of the natural world from the author of THE MAGICAL MAZE Why do many flowers have five or eight petals, but very few six or seven? Why do snowflakes have sixfold symmetry? Why do tigers have stripes but leopards have spots? Mathematics is to nature as Sherlock Holmes is to evidence. Mathematics can look at a single snowflake and deduce the atomic geometry of its crystals; it can start with a violin string and uncover the existence of radio waves. And mathematics still has the power to open our eyes to new and unsuspected regularities - the secret structure of a cloud or the hidden rhythms of the weather. There are patterns in the world we are now seeing for the first time - patterns at the frontier of science, yet patterns so simple that anybody can see them once they know where to look.

The name Bourbaki is known to every mathematician. Many also know something of the origins of Bourbaki, yet few know the full story. In 1935, a small group of young mathematicians in France decided to write a fundamental treatise on analysis to replace the standard texts of the time. They ended up writing the most influential and sweeping mathematical treatise of the twentieth century, ""Les elements de mathematique"". Maurice Mashaal lifts the veil from this secret society, showing us how heated debates, schoolboy humor, and the devotion and hard work of the members produced the ten books that took them over sixty years to write.The book has many first-hand accounts of the origins of Bourbaki, their meetings, their seminars, and the members themselves. He also discusses the lasting influence that Bourbaki has had on mathematics, through both the Elements and the Seminaires. The book is illustrated with numerous remarkable photographs.