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9780387949314

Fantasia Mathematica

by
  • ISBN13:

    9780387949314

  • ISBN10:

    0387949313

  • Edition: Reprint
  • Format: Paperback
  • Copyright: 1997-04-01
  • Publisher: Copernicus Books

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Supplemental Materials

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Summary

Clifton Fadiman's classic collection of mathematical stories, essays and anecdotes first published in 1958, is now back in print. Ranging from the poignant to the comical to the surreal, these selections include writing by Aldous Huxley, Martin Gardner, H.G. Wells, George Gamow, G.H. Hardy, Plato, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and many others. Humorous and mysterious, this collection will please mathematicians and everyone else who loves a good story full of stimulating ideas.

Table of Contents

Introduction by CLIFTON FADIMAN xiii
1. ODD NUMBERS 3(60)
Young Archimedes The deeply moving classic about an Italian peasant boy who might have been a mathematical genius
3(32)
ALDOUS HUXLEY
Pythagoras and the Psychoanalyst Why the Pythagorean theorem was never found.
35(2)
ARTHUR KOESTLER
Mother and the Decimal Point She tries to find out who is in change of it.
37(3)
RICHARD LLEWELLYN
Jurgen Proves It by Mathematics He demonstrates for the beautiful Queen Dolores nine deeply penetrating propositions.
40(6)
JAMES BRANCH CABELL
Peter Learns Arithmetic How to be sure that 3 plus 4 always equal 7.
46(3)
H. G. WELLS
Socrates and the Slave In which the Socratic method proves that an ignorant boy really knew all about the Pythagorean theorem all the time. All he had to do was remember it.
49(8)
PLATO
The Death of Archimedes What really happened when that Roman centurion found the mathematician of Syracuse at work on circles.
57(6)
KAREL CAPEK
II. IMAGINARIES 63(198)
The Devil and Simon Flagg Mephisto in search of a mathematical truth.
63(7)
ARTHUR PORGES
And He Built a Crooked House Adventures in fourth-dimensional architecture.
70(21)
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN
Inflexible Logic Remember those six chimpanzees with six typewriters...? Well, here they start writing.
91(8)
RUSSELL MALONEY
No-Sided Professor What happens when a professor of topology is punctuated by a strip-tease act.
99(11)
MARTIN GARDNER
Superiority Showing how, in a war of the universe, it's the inferior science that may win.
110(11)
ARTHUR C. CLARKE
The Mathematical Voodoo How to make a mathematical genius by magic.
121(17)
H. NEARING, JR.
Expedition If you fill one spaceship with twenty-nine women and one man, how many ...?
138(2)
FREDRIC BROWN
The Captured Cross-Section In which a young mathematician goes chasing his fiancee into the fourth dimension.
140(15)
MILES J. BREUER, M.D.
A. Botts and the Moebius Strip Showing how a simple demonstration in topology saved the lives of several Australian soldiers.
155(16)
WILLIAM HAZLETT UPSON
God and the Machine On the relative inhumanity of electronic computers.
171(11)
NIGEL BALCHIN
The Tachypomp From 1873 comes a device for achieving infinite speed.
182(15)
EDWARD PAGE MITCHELL
The Island of Five Colors A tale in which five countries apparently really had common borders--a topological impossibility.
196(26)
MARTIN GARDNER
The Last Magician and how he faced a mathematical problem that Houdini was born too early to solve.
211(11)
BRUCE ELLIOTT
A Subway Named Moebius In which a Harvard professor of mathematics is called upon to solve a mysterious disaster in Boston's under-ground transportation system.
222(15)
A. J. DEUTSCH
The Universal Library If every book that could possibly be printed in one language were aligned in a row, how long would it take to walk past them?
237(7)
KURD LASSWITZ
Postscript to "The Universal Library" In which the translator of the previous story gives not only the history of the problem but other solutions as well.
244(4)
WILLY LEY
John Jones's Dollar Showing how universal socialism was attained through a simple problem in sixth-grade arithmetic.
248(13)
HARRY STEPHEN KEELER
III. FRACTIONS 261
A New Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens
261(5)
ARTHUR T. QUILLER-COUCH
The Unfortunate Topologist
266(1)
CYRIL KORNBLUTH
There Once Was a Breathy Baboon...
267(1)
SIR ARTHUR EDDINGTON
Yet What Are All...
268(1)
LEWIS CARROLL
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
269(1)
RALPH BARTON
Mathematical Love From The Definition of Love
270(1)
ANDREW MARVELL
The Circle
271(1)
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
The Circle and the Square From The Honest Whore
272(1)
THOMAS DEKKER
Euclid Alone Has Looked on Beauty Bare
273(1)
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Euclid
274(1)
VACHEL LINDSAY
To Think That Two and Two Are Four
275(1)
A. E. HOUSMAN
The Uses of Mathematics From Hudibras
276(1)
SAMUEL BUTLER
Arithmetic
277(1)
CARL SANDBURG
Threes (To Be Sung by Niels Bohr)
278(1)
JOHN ATHERTON
Plane Geometry
279(2)
EMMA ROUNDS
He Thought He Saw Electrons Swift
281(1)
HERBERT DINGLE
Fearsome Fable
282(1)
BRUCE ELLIOTT
Bertrand Russell's Dream From A Mathematician's Apology
283(1)
G. H. HARDY
For All Practical Purposes From Through the Mathescope
284(1)
C. STANLEY OGILVY
Eternity: A Nightmare From Sylvie and Bruno Concluded
285(1)
LEWIS CARROLL
An Infinity of Guests From One, Two, Three...Infinity
286(1)
GEORGE GAMOW
From New Pathways in Science
287(1)
SIR ARTHUR EDDINGTON
No Power on Earth
288(1)
WILLIAM WHEWELL
(x + 1) From James Russell Lowell
289(1)
EDGAR ALLAN POE
The Receptive Bosom
290(1)
EDWARD SHANKS
Leinbach's Proof From Flight into Darkness
291(1)
ARTHUR SCHNITZLER
Problem from The New Yorker: "Talk of the Town"
292(1)
A Letter to Tennyson from Mathematical Gazette
293(1)
A Fable from Mathematical Gazette
294(1)
There Was a Young Man from Trinity
295(1)
ANONYMOUS
There Was an Old Man Who Said, "Do"
296(1)
ANONYMOUS
Relativity
297(1)
ANONYMOUS
There Was a Young Fellow Named Fisk
298
ANONYMOUS

Supplemental Materials

What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

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