18 Unconventional Essays On The Nature Of Mathematics

Author : Reuben Hersh
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 0387298312
Total Pages : 346 pages
Book Rating : 4.13/5 ( download)

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Download or read book 18 Unconventional Essays on the Nature of Mathematics written by Reuben Hersh and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-01-16 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collection of the most interesting recent writings on the philosophy of mathematics written by highly respected researchers from philosophy, mathematics, physics, and chemistry Interdisciplinary book that will be useful in several fields—with a cross-disciplinary subject area, and contributions from researchers of various disciplines

Author : Philip Davis
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 0817682945
Total Pages : 522 pages
Book Rating : 4.41/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Mathematical Experience, Study Edition written by Philip Davis and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-10-27 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 1983 National Book Award! "...a perfectly marvelous book about the Queen of Sciences, from which one will get a real feeling for what mathematicians do and who they are. The exposition is clear and full of wit and humor..." - The New Yorker (1983 National Book Award edition) Mathematics has been a human activity for thousands of years. Yet only a few people from the vast population of users are professional mathematicians, who create, teach, foster, and apply it in a variety of situations. The authors of this book believe that it should be possible for these professional mathematicians to explain to non-professionals what they do, what they say they are doing, and why the world should support them at it. They also believe that mathematics should be taught to non-mathematics majors in such a way as to instill an appreciation of the power and beauty of mathematics. Many people from around the world have told the authors that they have done precisely that with the first edition and they have encouraged publication of this revised edition complete with exercises for helping students to demonstrate their understanding. This edition of the book should find a new generation of general readers and students who would like to know what mathematics is all about. It will prove invaluable as a course text for a general mathematics appreciation course, one in which the student can combine an appreciation for the esthetics with some satisfying and revealing applications. The text is ideal for 1) a GE course for Liberal Arts students 2) a Capstone course for perspective teachers 3) a writing course for mathematics teachers. A wealth of customizable online course materials for the book can be obtained from Elena Anne Marchisotto ([email protected]) upon request.

Author : Catherine Kendig
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317215435
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.31/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Natural Kinds and Classification in Scientific Practice written by Catherine Kendig and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume of 13 new essays aims to turn past discussions of natural kinds on their head. Instead of presenting a metaphysical view of kinds based largely on an unempirical vantage point, it pursues questions of kindedness which take the use of kinds and activities of kinding in practice as significant in the articulation of them as kinds. The book brings philosophical study of current and historical episodes and case studies from various scientific disciplines to bear on natural kinds as traditionally conceived of within metaphysics. Focusing on these practices reveals the different knowledge-producing activities of kinding and processes involved in natural kind use, generation, and discovery. Specialists in their field, the esteemed group of contributors use diverse empirically responsive approaches to explore the nature of kindhood. This groundbreaking volume presents detailed case studies that exemplify kinding in use. Newly written for this volume, each chapter engages with the activities of kinding across a variety of disciplines. Chapter topics include the nature of kinds, kindhood, kinding, and kind-making in linguistics, chemical classification, neuroscience, gene and protein classification, colour theory in applied mathematics, homology in comparative biology, sex and gender identity theory, memory research, race, extended cognition, symbolic algebra, cartography, and geographic information science. The volume seeks to open up an as-yet unexplored area within the emerging field of philosophy of science in practice, and constitutes a valuable addition to the disciplines of philosophy and history of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Author : Harry Henderson
Publisher : Infobase Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0816057508
Total Pages : 189 pages
Book Rating : 4.04/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mathematics written by Harry Henderson and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2007 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses mathematics and how it plans an intricate part of daily life rather than an isolated science.

Author : Reuben Hersh
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781470414122
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.20/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Experiencing Mathematics written by Reuben Hersh and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The question "What am I doing?" haunts many creative people, researchers, and teachers. Mathematics, poetry, and philosophy can look from the outside sometimes as ballet en pointe, and at other times as the flight of the bumblebee. Reuben Hersh looks at mathematics from the inside; he collects his papers written over several decades, their edited versions, and new chapters in his book Experiencing Mathematics, which is practical, philosophical, and in some places as intensely personal as Swann's madeleine.-Yuri Manin, Max Planck Institute, Bonn, Germany What happens when mid-career a mathemat.

Author : Reuben Hersh
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 9781400836116
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.15/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Loving and Hating Mathematics written by Reuben Hersh and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-12-13 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mathematics is often thought of as the coldest expression of pure reason. But few subjects provoke hotter emotions--and inspire more love and hatred--than mathematics. And although math is frequently idealized as floating above the messiness of human life, its story is nothing if not human; often, it is all too human. Loving and Hating Mathematics is about the hidden human, emotional, and social forces that shape mathematics and affect the experiences of students and mathematicians. Written in a lively, accessible style, and filled with gripping stories and anecdotes, Loving and Hating Mathematics brings home the intense pleasures and pains of mathematical life. These stories challenge many myths, including the notions that mathematics is a solitary pursuit and a "young man's game," the belief that mathematicians are emotionally different from other people, and even the idea that to be a great mathematician it helps to be a little bit crazy. Reuben Hersh and Vera John-Steiner tell stories of lives in math from their very beginnings through old age, including accounts of teaching and mentoring, friendships and rivalries, love affairs and marriages, and the experiences of women and minorities in a field that has traditionally been unfriendly to both. Included here are also stories of people for whom mathematics has been an immense solace during times of crisis, war, and even imprisonment--as well as of those rare individuals driven to insanity and even murder by an obsession with math. This is a book for anyone who wants to understand why the most rational of human endeavors is at the same time one of the most emotional.

Author : Gert Schubring
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 303001617X
Total Pages : 190 pages
Book Rating : 4.73/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Interfaces between Mathematical Practices and Mathematical Education written by Gert Schubring and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-01-16 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This contributed volume investigates the active role of the different contexts of mathematics teaching on the evolution of the practices of mathematical concepts, with particular focus on their foundations. The book aims to deconstruct the strong and generally wide-held conviction that research in mathematics constitutes the only driving force for any progress in the development of mathematics as a field. In compelling and convincing contrast, these chapters aim to show the productive function of teaching, showcasing investigations from countries and regions throughout various eras, from Old Babylonia through the 20th Century. In so doing, they provide a critical reflection on the foundations of mathematics, as well as instigate new research questions, and explore the interfaces between teaching and research.

Author : Anna Sverdlik
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351344757
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.53/5 ( download)

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Download or read book How Our Emotions and Bodies are Vital for Abstract Thought written by Anna Sverdlik and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-06-18 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If mathematics is the purest form of knowledge, the perfect foundation of all the hard sciences, and a uniquely precise discipline, then how can the human brain, an imperfect and imprecise organ, process mathematical ideas? Is mathematics made up of eternal, universal truths? Or, as some have claimed, could mathematics simply be a human invention, a kind of tool or metaphor? These questions are among the greatest enigmas of science and epistemology, discussed at length by mathematicians, physicians, and philosophers. But, curiously enough, neuroscientists have been absent in the debate, even though it is precisely the field of neuroscience—which studies the brain’s mechanisms for thinking and reasoning—that ought to be at the very center of these discussions. How our Emotions and Bodies are Vital for Abstract Thought explores the unique mechanisms of cooperation between the body, emotions, and the cortex, based on fundamental physical principles. It is these mechanisms that help us to overcome the limitations of our physiology and allow our imperfect, human brains to make transcendent mathematical discoveries. This book is written for anyone who is interested in the nature of abstract thought, including mathematicians, physicists, computer scientists, psychologists, and psychiatrists.

Author : Anton Hughes
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1315283190
Total Pages : 230 pages
Book Rating : 4.97/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Patentability of Software written by Anton Hughes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-02-18 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the question of whether software should be patented. It analyses the ways in which the courts of the US, the EU, and Australia have attempted to deal with the problems surrounding the patentability of software and describes why it is that the software patent issue should be dealt with as a patentable subject matter issue, rather than as an issue of novelty or nonobviousness. Anton Hughes demonstrates that the current approach has failed and that a fresh approach to the software patent problem is needed. The book goes on to argue against the patentability of software based on its close relationship to mathematics. Drawing on historical and philosophical accounts of mathematics in pursuit of a better understanding of its nature and focusing the debate on the conditions necessary for mathematical advancement, the author puts forward an analytical framework centred around the concept of the useful arts. This analysis both explains mathematics’, and therefore software’s, nonpatentability and offers a theory of patentable subject matter consistent with Australian, American, and European patent law.

Author : Brendan Larvor
Publisher : Birkhäuser
ISBN 13 : 3319285823
Total Pages : 460 pages
Book Rating : 4.25/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mathematical Cultures written by Brendan Larvor and published by Birkhäuser. This book was released on 2016-05-25 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection presents significant contributions from an international network project on mathematical cultures, including essays from leading scholars in the history and philosophy of mathematics and mathematics education.​ Mathematics has universal standards of validity. Nevertheless, there are local styles in mathematical research and teaching, and great variation in the place of mathematics in the larger cultures that mathematical practitioners belong to. The reflections on mathematical cultures collected in this book are of interest to mathematicians, philosophers, historians, sociologists, cognitive scientists and mathematics educators.