The Mathematical Experience, Study Edition (Modern Birkhäuser Classics) by Philip Davis (PDF)

Description

Winner of the 1983 National Book Award!”…a perfectly marvelous book about the Queen of Sciences, from which one will get a real feeling for what mathematicians do and who they are. The exposition is clear and full of wit and humor…” – The New Yorker (1983 National Book Award edition)Mathematics has been a human activity for thousands of years. Yet only a few people from the vast population of users are professional mathematicians, who create, teach, foster, and apply it in a variety of situations. The authors of this book believe that it should be possible for these professional mathematicians to explain to non-professionals what they do, what they say they are doing, and why the world should support them at it. They also believe that mathematics should be taught to non-mathematics majors in such a way as to instill an appreciation of the power and beauty of mathematics. Many people from around the world have told the authors that they have done precisely that with the first edition and they have encouraged publication of this revised edition complete with exercises for helping students to demonstrate their understanding. This edition of the book should find a new generation of general readers and students who would like to know what mathematics is all about. It will prove invaluable as a course text for a general mathematics appreciation course, one in which the student can combine an appreciation for the esthetics with some satisfying and revealing applications.The text is ideal for 1) a GE course for Liberal Arts students 2) a Capstone course for perspective teachers 3) a writing course for mathematics teachers. A wealth of customizable online course materials for the book can be obtained from Elena Anne Marchisotto (elena.marchisotto@csun.edu) upon request.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Perfect quality way cheaper than actual prize.

⭐It is what I need for class, but the content is just too self-righteous for my personal taste. To each their own though

⭐good

⭐I took Ruben Hersh’s class, Foundations of Mathematics, with this book as the text, in the early ’80’s. It was a wonderful experience and I fell in love with the material, pouring more time into this course than all my others. I was reading Hofstadter’s “Godel, Escher and Bach” at the same time and the two books fit together like hand and glove. The course was graduate level but a few undergrads were taking it and the book is appropriate for a general audience with an interest in math. It could also be called Philosophy of Math and really makes a great connection between math theorem proving and the Hegelian dialectic upon which the USA is founded. So this book will not only improve your outlook on math but will also make you a better citizen of a democracy. It is important to realize the relationship between proof and refutation and dialectical reasoning and how these are fundamental mechanisms for how humans interact to achieve better results in aggregate than they would as individuals. Expect to learn about Plato, Gauss, Cantor, Descartes, Hegel, Lakatos, Frege, Russell, Hilbert, Goedel and more. I had an earlier edition with some beautiful cover art but would expect the current edition to be just as good otherwise.

⭐This book was a revelation to me. I was teaching Physics to gifted high school students at the time I read the book and was looking for innovative ways to teach the associated mathematics. This book opened the door to mathematics the way I was teaching physics, that is following a historical path. So I started to teach the historical perspective of both math and physics simultaneously, which proved to be a very organic method. As human beings progressively learned more about both subjects, so my students and I progressed with the material, historically. Lovely book, filled with superb material which is as enlightening and it is entertaining. Enjoy!

⭐I did not quite know what to make of this book on first reading but once into what the authors had to say it became ‘unputdownable’. It certainly answered a lot of the questions that I had as a youngster concerning mathematics, its study, learning and teaching. I have come to the conclusion that this book is a must for anyone who wishes to get to grips with pedagogy, and learning. It is not a book on Mathematical Philosophy although it does mention aspects in a very practical way. Highly recommended for the person who has an enquiring mind about the way in which we as a species have understood and developed our mathematical thinking and teaching over the centuries. It uncovers some very interesting and intriguing results.

⭐I am a pre-university student from Spain. I am not going to study Mathematics, but Philosophy. As I have lately been very interested in Racionalism and all the mathematical stuff involved in the area, I bought this book as an introductory volume in which I could begin to know the mathematical principles, that are at last what tends to have philosophical relevance.When choosing this edition I was caught by the posibility of putting all these theorical knowledge into practice by these excercises this offers, however, I wasn’t able to do any of them. The same thing happened at the time of reading some chapters of it. At first the thing does not get too complicated -I think that anyone who has a little cultural background can understand most of the book-, but then the reading goes on, and you can’t help feeling that you have not understood any of the ideas it states. Nevertheless, this is something the authors warn you about, and there are many other chapters or issues that have been absolutely fascinating and interesting for me, and of course useful for next year.Althought I personally recommend the simpler edition, this is a excellent book not only for mathematicians but also for any other one who is interested in mathematics as a way to expand their knowledge or put Mathematics into practice for anyone interested in thinking or, who knows, wondering about the world or the human being.

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