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If you have comments, questions or just want more information about the books published by the National Academies Press and the Joseph Henry Press, you may contact our customer service department toll-free at 888-624-8373, visit us online, or send an email to comments@nap.edu. This book plus many more are available at http://www.jhpress.org. Copyright © All rights reserved. Distribution, posting, or copying is strictly prohibited without written permission of the National Academies Press. Request reprint permission for this book. ISBN: 0-309-65958-2, 224 pages, 5 1/2 x 8 1/2, (2006) This PDF is available from the Joseph Henry Press at: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11543.html http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11543.html We ship printed books within 1 business day; personal PDFs are available immediately. The Secret Life of Numbers: 50 Easy Pieces on How Mathematicians Work and Think George G. Szpiro [...]... his son never recovered from the blow II Unsolved Conjectures 5 The Mathematicians Million Dollar Baby Henri Poincaré (1854–1912) was one of the most eminent French mathematicians of the past two centuries Together with his German contemporary, David Hilbert, Poincaré was one of the last mathematicians who not only had a deep understanding of all areas of mathematics but also was active in all of them... tearing or gluing pieces together A ball, an egg, and a flowerpot are, topologically speaking, equivalent bodies, 17 18 THE SECRET LIFE OF NUMBERS since any one of them can be deformed into any of the others without performing any of the “illegal” actions A ball and a coffee cup, on the other hand, are not equivalent, since the cup has a handle, which could not have been formed out of the ball without... probability theory For more than 30 years, the Swiss National Fund has been supporting work on an edition of the complete works of Jakob I, Johann I, and Daniel The complete edition will comprise 24 volumes Another 15 volumes, including a selection of their 8,000 letters, is to follow Unfortunately, the gentlemen from Basle were as con11 12 THE SECRET LIFE OF NUMBERS ceited and arrogant as they were... Swiss 14 THE SECRET LIFE OF NUMBERS mathematicians in exile The six years they spent together in St Petersburg were the most productive time of Daniel’s life After he returned to Basle, the quarrels within the family started anew When Daniel won the prize of the Parisian Academy of Science jointly with his father for a paper on astronomy, Johann I didn’t exactly act like a proud father On the contrary,... When Snobelen assessed the manuscripts, he chanced upon a piece of paper on which the famous physicist had 6 HISTORICAL TIDBITS 7 calculated the year of the apocalypse: 2060 Newton arrived at this date based on razor-sharp conclusions From his readings of the Book of Daniel (Chapter 7, Verse 25) and the Book of Revelations, the physicist concluded that the time span of three and a half years signified... This is a scientific way of writing 0.00000000000001 2 Is the World Coming to an End Soon? Isaac Newton was, as we all know, the most outstanding scientist and mathematician of the 17th and 18th centuries He is considered the father of physics and the founder of the law of gravity But was he really the rational thinker as we would have it today? Far from it As it turns out, Newton was also a religious... understanding by everyone I have set myself the task of trying to remedy this state of affairs somewhat The present book contains articles that I wrote on mathematics during the past three years for the Swiss daily newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung and its Sunday edition NZZ am Sonntag It was, and is, my wish to give readers an understanding not only of the importance but also of the beauty and elegance of the. .. long think about all this and eventually arrived at the conclusion that the Julian year the year according to Julius Caesar—was simply too long To compensate for the inaccuracy, the Pope decided to adjust the calendar by leaping over some of the leap years: for each 25th leap year the leap day, originally 3 4 THE SECRET LIFE OF NUMBERS added by Caesar, would be canceled Thus, the month of February of the. .. sigh of relief Newton had another fallback position According to further calculations of the eminent physicist, the end of the world could be somewhat delayed and take place at the latest in the year 2370 3 Cozy Zurich Professors in Zurich are probably not quite aware of how lucky they are A visiting professor, invited to give a lecture series at the University of Zurich, can attest to the fact that the. .. are of course available for the one as for the other; and, third, that both machines will be set up in the lecture hall, just to be on the safe side Before the screening of the movie, the house technician gives the lecturer a crash course in the operation of the instrument panel that is embedded in the wall next to the blackboard and which, to the uninitiated, carries an astounding similarity to the . affiliated insti- tutions. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Szpiro, George G. The secret life of numbers : 50 easy pieces on how mathematicians work and think / George G. Szpiro. . personal PDFs are available immediately. The Secret Life of Numbers: 50 Easy Pieces on How Mathematicians Work and Think George G. Szpiro