Mathematics And War

Author : Bernhelm Booß-Bavnbek
Publisher : Birkhäuser
ISBN 13 : 3034880936
Total Pages : 420 pages
Book Rating : 4.30/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mathematics and War written by Bernhelm Booß-Bavnbek and published by Birkhäuser. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mathematics has for centuries been stimulated, financed and credited by military purposes. Some mathematical thoughts and mathematical technology have also been vital in war. During World War II mathematical work by the Anti-Hitler coalition was part of an aspiration to serve humanity and not help destroy it. At present, it is not an easy task to view the bellicose potentials of mathematics in a proper perspective. The book presents historical evidence and recent changes in the interaction between mathematics and the military. It discusses the new mathematically enhanced development of military technology which seems to have changed the very character of modern warfare.

Author : Carmen Latterell
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 0313027692
Total Pages : 200 pages
Book Rating : 4.97/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Math Wars written by Carmen Latterell and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2004-12-30 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is written for parents and other interested parties so that they can understand the great debate taking place in many states in this country about how to teach basic math. The debate centers around the standards written by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), which call for a radically different approach to mathematics education. Because the issues are so heated between the NCTM-oriented curricula and traditional curricula (the curricula that NCTM-oriented replaced), the term Math Wars was coined to describe them. Parents are concerned about their children's math learning. Teachers are concerned about math teaching. When parents see what children are bringing home under the new curriculum, it is clear that their children are not working on the same mathematics that parents remember from the time when they were in school. But, the problem goes beyond grades K-12. Post-secondary mathematics courses are the fear of many students. The standards created by the NCTM do not necessarily prepare students for success, either on SATs or in college. Besides lack of knowledge about mathematics education, many parents have an additional problem in that they feel they lack knowledge in mathematics itself. This is very intimidating; thus it is difficult for parents to do anything about the confusing state of mathematics education. This book provides some answers.

Author : Tony Royle
Publisher : McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN 13 : 0228005108
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.00/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Flying Mathematicians of World War I written by Tony Royle and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2020-10-22 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Keith Lucas was killed instantly when his BE2 biplane collided with that of a colleague over Salisbury Plain on 5 October 1916. As a captain in the Royal Flying Corps, Lucas would have known that his death was a very real risk of the work he was doing in support of Britain's war effort. But Lucas wasn't a career pilot - he was a scientist. The Flying Mathematicians of World War I details the advances and sacrifices of a select group of pioneers who left the safety of their laboratories to drive aeronautics forward at a critical moment in history. These mathematicians and scientists, including Lucas, took up the challenge to advance British aviation during the war and soon realized that they would need to learn how to fly themselves if they were to complete their mission. Set in the context of a new field of engineering, driven apace by conflict, the book follows Lucas and his colleagues as they endured freezing cockpits and engaged in aerial versions of Russian roulette in order to expand our understanding of aeronautics. Tony Royle deftly navigates this fascinating history of technical achievement, imagination, and ingenuity punctuated by bravery, persistence, and tragedy. As a result, The Flying Mathematicians of World War I makes accessible the mathematics and the personal stories that forever changed the course of aviation.

Author : Philipp Von Hilgers
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262300370
Total Pages : 235 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

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Download or read book War Games written by Philipp Von Hilgers and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2012-03-16 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The convergence of military strategy and mathematics in war games, from medieval to modern times. For centuries, both mathematical and military thinkers have used game-like scenarios to test their visions of mastering a complex world through symbolic operations. By the end of World War I, mathematical and military discourse in Germany simultaneously discovered the game as a productive concept. Mathematics and military strategy converged in World War II when mathematicians designed fields of operation. In this book, Philipp von Hilgers examines the theory and practice of war games through history, from the medieval game boards, captured on parchment, to the paper map exercises of the Third Reich. Von Hilgers considers how and why war games came to exist: why mathematical and military thinkers created simulations of one of the most unpredictable human activities on earth. Von Hilgers begins with the medieval rythmomachia, or Battle of Numbers, then reconstructs the ideas about war and games in the baroque period. He investigates the role of George Leopold von Reiswitz's tactical war game in nineteenth-century Prussia and describes the artifact itself: a game board–topped table with drawers for game implements. He explains Clausewitz's emphasis on the “fog of war” and the accompanying element of incalculability, examines the contributions of such thinkers as Clausewitz, Leibniz, Wittgenstein, and von Neumann, and investigates the war games of the German military between the two World Wars. Baudrillard declared this to be the age of simulacra; war games stand contrariwise as simulations that have not been subsumed in absolute virtuality.

Author : R. Daniel Mauldin
Publisher : Birkhäuser
ISBN 13 : 3319228978
Total Pages : 322 pages
Book Rating : 4.76/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Scottish Book written by R. Daniel Mauldin and published by Birkhäuser. This book was released on 2015-11-26 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second edition of this book updates and expands upon a historically important collection of mathematical problems first published in the United States by Birkhäuser in 1981. These problems serve as a record of the informal discussions held by a group of mathematicians at the Scottish Café in Lwów, Poland, between the two world wars. Many of them were leaders in the development of such areas as functional and real analysis, group theory, measure and set theory, probability, and topology. Finding solutions to the problems they proposed has been ongoing since World War II, with prizes offered in many cases to those who are successful. In the 35 years since the first edition published, several more problems have been fully or partially solved, but even today many still remain unsolved and several prizes remain unclaimed. In view of this, the editor has gathered new and updated commentaries on the original 193 problems. Some problems are solved for the first time in this edition. Included again in full are transcripts of lectures given by Stanislaw Ulam, Mark Kac, Antoni Zygmund, Paul Erdös, and Andrzej Granas that provide amazing insights into the mathematical environment of Lwów before World War II and the development of The Scottish Book. Also new in this edition are a brief history of the University of Wrocław’s New Scottish Book, created to revive the tradition of the original, and some selected problems from it. The Scottish Book offers a unique opportunity to communicate with the people and ideas of a time and place that had an enormous influence on the development of mathematics and try their hand on the unsolved problems. Anyone in the general mathematical community with an interest in the history of modern mathematics will find this to be an insightful and fascinating read.

Author : Jordan Ellenberg
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0143127535
Total Pages : 482 pages
Book Rating : 4.36/5 ( download)

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Download or read book How Not to Be Wrong written by Jordan Ellenberg and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-05-26 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Witty, compelling, and just plain fun to read . . ." —Evelyn Lamb, Scientific American The Freakonomics of math—a math-world superstar unveils the hidden beauty and logic of the world and puts its power in our hands The math we learn in school can seem like a dull set of rules, laid down by the ancients and not to be questioned. In How Not to Be Wrong, Jordan Ellenberg shows us how terribly limiting this view is: Math isn’t confined to abstract incidents that never occur in real life, but rather touches everything we do—the whole world is shot through with it. Math allows us to see the hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of our world. It’s a science of not being wrong, hammered out by centuries of hard work and argument. Armed with the tools of mathematics, we can see through to the true meaning of information we take for granted: How early should you get to the airport? What does “public opinion” really represent? Why do tall parents have shorter children? Who really won Florida in 2000? And how likely are you, really, to develop cancer? How Not to Be Wrong presents the surprising revelations behind all of these questions and many more, using the mathematician’s method of analyzing life and exposing the hard-won insights of the academic community to the layman—minus the jargon. Ellenberg chases mathematical threads through a vast range of time and space, from the everyday to the cosmic, encountering, among other things, baseball, Reaganomics, daring lottery schemes, Voltaire, the replicability crisis in psychology, Italian Renaissance painting, artificial languages, the development of non-Euclidean geometry, the coming obesity apocalypse, Antonin Scalia’s views on crime and punishment, the psychology of slime molds, what Facebook can and can’t figure out about you, and the existence of God. Ellenberg pulls from history as well as from the latest theoretical developments to provide those not trained in math with the knowledge they need. Math, as Ellenberg says, is “an atomic-powered prosthesis that you attach to your common sense, vastly multiplying its reach and strength.” With the tools of mathematics in hand, you can understand the world in a deeper, more meaningful way. How Not to Be Wrong will show you how.

Author : David Aubin
Publisher : American Mathematical Society
ISBN 13 : 1470414694
Total Pages : 414 pages
Book Rating : 4.96/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The War of Guns and Mathematics written by David Aubin and published by American Mathematical Society. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For a long time, World War I has been shortchanged by the historiography of science. Until recently, World War II was usually considered as the defining event for the formation of the modern relationship between science and society. In this context, the effects of the First World War, by contrast, were often limited to the massive deaths of promising young scientists. By focusing on a few key places (Paris, Cambridge, Rome, Chicago, and others), the present book gathers studies representing a broad spectrum of positions adopted by mathematicians about the conflict, from militant pacifism to military, scientific, or ideological mobilization. The use of mathematics for war is thoroughly examined. This book suggests a new vision of the long-term influence of World War I on mathematics and mathematicians. Continuities and discontinuities in the structure and organization of the mathematical sciences are discussed, as well as their images in various milieux. Topics of research and the values with which they were defended are scrutinized. This book, in particular, proposes a more in-depth evaluation of the issue of modernity and modernization in mathematics. The issue of scientific international relations after the war is revisited by a close look at the situation in a few Allied countries (France, Britain, Italy, and the USA). The historiography has emphasized the place of Germany as the leading mathematical country before WWI and the absurdity of its postwar ostracism by the Allies. The studies presented here help explain how dramatically different prewar situations, prolonged interaction during the war, and new international postwar organizations led to attempts at redrafting models for mathematical developments.

Author : Andrew Hacker
Publisher : New Press, The
ISBN 13 : 1620970694
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.90/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Math Myth written by Andrew Hacker and published by New Press, The. This book was released on 2010-05-25 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times–bestselling author looks at mathematics education in America—when it’s worthwhile, and when it’s not. Why do we inflict a full menu of mathematics—algebra, geometry, trigonometry, even calculus—on all young Americans, regardless of their interests or aptitudes? While Andrew Hacker has been a professor of mathematics himself, and extols the glories of the subject, he also questions some widely held assumptions in this thought-provoking and practical-minded book. Does advanced math really broaden our minds? Is mastery of azimuths and asymptotes needed for success in most jobs? Should the entire Common Core syllabus be required of every student? Hacker worries that our nation’s current frenzied emphasis on STEM is diverting attention from other pursuits and even subverting the spirit of the country. Here, he shows how mandating math for everyone prevents other talents from being developed and acts as an irrational barrier to graduation and careers. He proposes alternatives, including teaching facility with figures, quantitative reasoning, and understanding statistics. Expanding upon the author’s viral New York Times op-ed, The Math Myth is sure to spark a heated and needed national conversation—not just about mathematics but about the kind of people and society we want to be. “Hacker’s accessible arguments offer plenty to think about and should serve as a clarion call to students, parents, and educators who decry the one-size-fits-all approach to schooling.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

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 : Jason Socrates Bardi
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 0786733640
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.44/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Calculus Wars written by Jason Socrates Bardi and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2009-04-29 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This vibrant and gripping history ultimately exposes how these twin mathematical giants (Newton, Leibniz) were proud, brilliant, at times mad, and in the end completely human.