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    Strange Curves, Counting Rabbits, & Other Mathematical Explorations
    Strange Curves, Counting Rabbits, & Other Mathematical Explorations
    Strange Curves, Counting Rabbits, & Other Mathematical Explorations
    Ebook377 pages3 hours

    Strange Curves, Counting Rabbits, & Other Mathematical Explorations

    By Keith Ball

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    About this ebook

    How does mathematics enable us to send pictures from space back to Earth? Where does the bell-shaped curve come from? Why do you need only 23 people in a room for a 50/50 chance of two of them sharing the same birthday? In Strange Curves, Counting Rabbits, and Other Mathematical Explorations, Keith Ball highlights how ideas, mostly from pure math, can answer these questions and many more. Drawing on areas of mathematics from probability theory, number theory, and geometry, he explores a wide range of concepts, some more light-hearted, others central to the development of the field and used daily by mathematicians, physicists, and engineers.


    Each of the book's ten chapters begins by outlining key concepts and goes on to discuss, with the minimum of technical detail, the principles that underlie them. Each includes puzzles and problems of varying difficulty. While the chapters are self-contained, they also reveal the links between seemingly unrelated topics. For example, the problem of how to design codes for satellite communication gives rise to the same idea of uncertainty as the problem of screening blood samples for disease.


    Accessible to anyone familiar with basic calculus, this book is a treasure trove of ideas that will entertain, amuse, and bemuse students, teachers, and math lovers of all ages.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPrinceton University Press
    Release dateOct 16, 2011
    ISBN9781400841240
    Strange Curves, Counting Rabbits, & Other Mathematical Explorations

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      Strange Curves, Counting Rabbits, & Other Mathematical Explorations - Keith Ball

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