A Mathematical Mystery Tour

by A. K. Dewdney

• ISBN13: 9780471407348
• ISBN10: 0471407348
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-05-01
• Publisher: Wiley

Summary

Praise for A. K. Dewdney Yes, We Have No Neutrons "We need more books like this-especially if they're this much fun to read." -Wired "Dewdney manages to make this catalog of error entertaining as well as instructive; good medicine for both skeptics and true believers." -Kirkus Reviews "Written with wit and a touch of pathos-and sure to please science lovers." -Publishers Weekly 200% of Nothing "It is impossible to read this timely, important book without enjoyment and eye-opening enlightenment." -Martin Gardner "An entertaining, stinging expos?." -Publishers Weekly

Author Biography

A. K. Dewdney, Ph.D., is the author of several critically acclaimed math and science books, including The Armchair Universe and The Planiverse: Computer Contact with a Two-Dimensional World.

Table of Contents

Preface	v
Point of Departure	1	(10)
The mathematician ponders the question
Part I The Holos
Death of a Dream	11	(22)
Petros Pygonopolis explains Pythagoras's dream of a commensurable cosmos and how it came to naught
The Birth of a Theorem	33	(26)
Pythagoras loses the world but gains Olympus when he discovers his famous theorem
Part II The Superior World
Al Jabar	59	(22)
The astronomer al-Flayli describes the House of Wisdom, the birth of modern numbers, and algebra
The Spheres	81	(26)
A foray into the desert reveals an ancient mistake about the stars and the story of the mistake's correction
Part III The Vanishing Act
The Message	107	(22)
Physicist and historian Maria Canzoni explains how a message from the stars was decoded
The Ultimate Reality	129	(28)
If matter is really energy, perhaps energy is really information
Part IV The Engines of Thought
Horping Zooks	157	(26)
Sir John Brainard explains the process of abstraction and how it led to the mechanization of thought
Mind Machines	183	(20)
The Turing machine gives birth to a new version of mind and to an independently existing universe
Epilogue: Cosmos and Holos	203	(11)
Index	214