The Math Book: From Pythagoras to the 57th Dimension, 250 Milestones in the History of Mathematics (Union Square & Co. Milestones) by Clifford A. Pickover (PDF)

Description

Math’s infinite mysteries unfold in this paperback edition of the bestselling TheMath Book. Beginning millions of years ago with ancient “ant odometers” and moving through time to our modern-day quest for new dimensions, prolific polymath Clifford Pickover covers 250 milestones in mathematical history. Among the numerous concepts readers will encounter as they dip into this inviting anthology: cicada-generated prime numbers, magic squares, and the butterfly effect. Each topic is presented in a lavishly illustrated spread, including formulas and real-world applications of the theorems.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review Praise for The Math Book and Clifford Pickover:“Pickover contemplates realms beyond our known reality.”–The New York Times “I can’t imagine anybody whose minds won’t be stretched by [Pickover’s] books.”–Arthur C. Clarke”Bucky Fuller thought big, Arthur C. Clarke thinks big, but Cliff Pickover outdoes them both.”–WIRED Praise for The Math Book and Clifford Pickover:“Pickover contemplates realms beyond our known reality.”–The New York Times“I cant imagine anybody whose minds wont be stretched by [Pickovers] books.”–Arthur C. Clarke”Bucky Fuller thought big, Arthur C. Clarke thinks big, but Cliff Pickover outdoes them both.”–WIRED About the Author Internationally renowned author Clifford Pickover has published more than 40 books, translated into over a dozen languages, on such topics as computers and creativity, art, mathematics, black holes, human intelligence, time travel, alien life, religion, and the history of science. He is an associate editor for several journals, a puzzle contributor to magazines, and the author of over 200 articles on various subjects. Dr. Pickover received his PhD from Yale Universitys Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, having graduated first in his class from Franklin and Marshall College. Today, he holds over 70 U.S. patents for inventions dealing with computing technologies and interfaces. His website, pickover.com, has received millions of visits.

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

⭐I was so pleased with The Math Book as a history book and book of mathematical theory, I bought another one for my Daughter who fell in love with it. This book summarizes on each page a history of the math theory and person who came up with it. The illustrations are nice, but I found the history of the theories more interesting. Some theories the average reader may know already and others will be new ideas. It’s an encyclopedia of Math knowledge and ideas. To young physicist, science majors, astronomy lovers, and amateur self educators and the Mensa crowd, this book is for you.

⭐”The Math Book” could not have come at a better time. I say this because we are living in “The Information Age” and most Americans have access to a PC; therefore, we could very well be at the crossroads of our nation’s destiny. But then, every instant is most likely the crossroads of any nation’s destiny. What we say, think, and do affects every tick of the clock. Which is why I believe that “The Math Book” could not have come at a better time.Among young Americans entering college, interest in mathematics, science, and engineering is declining at an alarming rate. This is not true of international students, especially among Asians. Millions upon millions of Chinese students have acquired a ferocious interest in math, science, and engineering. And some estimate that in the very near future 90 percent of all the scientists and engineers in the world will live and work in Asia. It is as if Western Civilization is passing the torch of its scientific genius to the East. And the East is more than willing to take that torch and run with it.This is why “The Math Book” needs to be in the backpack of every high school student in America. And it should even be in the backpacks of their more precocious siblings in junior high. Moreover, all of them need to take it with them when they enter college so as not to lose their nerve when they enter that first calculus class — which is usually more difficult than they anticipated.What this book does so well is elevate numbers to the level of transcendental Splendor and makes them seem holy. But it does so gradually. Your Odyssey begins and you find yourself traveling down an ancient road whereupon you encounter the milestones that mark important mathematical breakthroughs. The milestones are chronologically arranged, and this is important because you soon discover that dice and the concept of random numbers have been around for 5000 years, but the use of knots occurred even earlier — an astounding 100, 000 years ago — give or take a few millenniums. You may wonder: What does this have to do with math? Well, read on and you will soon discover that knots are being used to create models of the very fabric of reality in today’s world of computer assisted mathematics.Speaking of the “fabric of reality”, “The Math Book” performs a magic trick by taking you into an oracle of higher mathematical understanding by stimulating your Right and Left Brain simultaneously. You open the book and you see the text on the left and often a striking visual image on the right. Thus, a single page of succinct, well-written prose distills the essence of each mathematical milestone into “linear” thought, i.e., plain English and mathematical symbols. Then on the right is the eye-catching color illustration, some of which were rendered by Teja Krasek, an artistic associate of Cliff Pickover’s, and these enable you to better contemplate the haunting Splendor of Numbers. In other cases, photographs and/or reproductions of famous prints as well as artistic renderings by various visual artists further illuminate your mind as you strive for cognition after reading Pickover’s explanation of the topic at hand.For instance, there is a photograph of a flaming zero on page 81 that is worth a thousand words. On page 125 you will see an example of Jos Ley’s “gorgeous” fractal art after reading about Rafael Bombelli’s imaginary numbers on page 124. (Imaginary numbers played a role in the production of Ley’s startling work of fractal art in this case). And then on page 63 there is “Eratosthenes” by Polish artist Andreas Guskos, which is an excellent illustration for Cliff Pickover’s commentary upon the Sieve of Eratosthenes on page 62. These and many other graphic designs may awaken what has been dormant in your psyche for a long time after you’ve read a few of Pickover’s nuggets of wisdom. He’s opened a vein of gold here. And before all is said and done he may turn out to be one of our better angels.

⭐This book does introduce you to many mathematical topics that most will probably not delve into through their educational careers, naturally invoking curiosity in its readers however I find that the structure of briefly introducing 250 topics of mathematics to be a bit of a tease. I wish some sections were more detailed but that would defeat the purpose of the overall structure of the book. In any case, it’s a great way to introduce yourself to some niche math.

⭐I thought this was simply a wonderful book. This is the first book I’ve ready by Clifford Pickover and seeing that he has written many others I think I will go track some of those down. This book basically covers the history of Mathematics in a very concise, but thoughtful way.Although the book is not a complete history, then again 500 pages would be barely enough to cover a complete history, but “The Math Book” covers some essential points. Pickover tried to do a couple of things when he wrote this book. Give the readers a good overview of Mathematics history and he also wanted to include Mathematical problems that interested him. In that regard the book can touch upon some little known historical elements in the field of Mathematics, which I think many will appreciate. Everyone hears the stories of Archimedes and his discovery of displacement, but there are lesser known problems and people as well and that’s where I think this book manages to get a little interesting. In the past one hundred years the field of mathematics has completely exploded and a great portion of this book deals with properties found in more modern times, which I think is great because most history books I’ve read don’t put it into the perspective of what’s going on in the field now.If you’re not totally math savvy, don’t worry. Pickover has written this book for the layman, so even the least experienced can gain an appreciation for the world and history of mathematics. One aspect of the book that really drew me to purchase this was each entry has one page of text describing the historical nature and the page opposite is a picture. Sometimes this is a picture of the person who discovered the property, but a lot of times it is an illustration of a mathematical object, which I think people will appreciate rather than just reading a mathematical narrative trying to describe an abstract object. Working with programs like Mathematica have surely enabled Pickover to bring some of these more complex geometries to life for everyone to see. I think this is one of the aspects that sets it apart from other books.I would highly recommend this to any math enthusiast regardless of background. However, if you are looking for a very detailed history of mathematics I would recommend you seek out other books. “The Math Book” is much lighter and designed to engage readers quickly, rather than get into the real details of the history.

⭐Covers many unique topics along with the old saws

⭐A good read when a student or instructor wants to offer background on math applications in the teaching.

⭐This book is really a huge disappointment, its not worth the ink printed on the pages… It has a very brief trivia and description of each subject (less than one page long) and a huge picture.To add insult to injury both the picture and the miniature description in most of the cases are not even helpful if they are not really bad, no actual insight given or something that resembles extra knowledge.This book could be 1 page long (front and back) containing just the titles of each milestone and be equally helpful, one could just google the titles and get much more info and insight (and pictures) just by clicking the wikipedia result of each of them. In fact that is the only value this book has… some mathematical milestones/theories put into chronological order so you know what came first than what (although again still lacks many events/theorems etc to be considered even for that function as comprehensive)I really don’t know who could benefit from this book… maybe children under 10 years who would get interested in learning more about the subjects (since the description is small they will not feel challenged to read it and since its useless they feel the need to research further)That is why I call it a legal scam. Its a book, there is nothing illegal inside… but the idea to sell something useless for money presenting it to be something is not is a scam.And it was my fault for not paying attention on the “look inside” feature… I didnt check the page numbers to realize how useless it is I thought it just had the first page of each topic in display as a demo… not that each topic was actually up to or less than one page!!!! Plus I glanced on the -probably paid/bot – reviews which were good and didnt think much more about it..My stupidity lead me to waste money on this legal scam I type this in hope of any other poor soul out there equally careless as me to notice this review and avoid my predicament.

⭐I have a deep interest in mathematics, not least from formal training and I bought this book thinking that it might broaden my mathematical culture. This it certainly achieves as any thick volume of history of science invariably would, covering the subject chronologically, trying to frame each of these pieces of text from a human angle.However, this rapidly gets formulaic, with a clear and repetitive pattern of writing, and pretty pictures that are not entirely relevant and not explained properly.To be fair to the author, now that I have the book, it certainly looks like one of those coffee table tomes and it probably never was meant to be taken at a single reading, as I did. Each page of text, on its own, while hardly going into the detail of the maths, or even explaining in an insightful manner how this really fits into the body of work of mathematics, reads well.So the treatment may not surprise or disappoint those with the expectation of light reading. It’s just not aimed at readers with formal training in mathematics or a deep fascination with the subject.

⭐As in another review was said: simply because of the photographs this book is worth its price. It’s an interesting and thorough revision of the history of Maths. I like the text-photograph layout sorted by date. Maybe it could be said it doesn’t enter too much into details, but I was looking for light reading, and this book it’s perfect because it consists of a lot of short stories.

⭐Fabulous book with beautiful photos and immediate appeal. It’s perfect for anyone with an interest in Mathematics. I would recommend it for students at KS4 and beyond, and for every maths teacher who wants to stimulate their students’ imagination. A delightful “dip into” book.

⭐Reasonable Maths book with loads of topics, a one pager on that topic facing a colour photograph related to the topic.Very little in the way of formulae, just explains the concepts.Presented in chronological order of this topic being discovered/published.Useful popular introduction to capture the imagination. Search the internet yourself to find the meat for thes overviews.

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