Imagining Numbers

· Macmillan + ORM
5,0
1 recensión
Libro electrónico
290
Páxinas
Apto
As valoracións e as recensións non están verificadas  Máis información

Acerca deste libro electrónico

How the elusive imaginary number was first imagined, and how to imagine it yourself

Imagining Numbers (particularly the square root of minus fifteen) is Barry Mazur's invitation to those who take delight in the imaginative work of reading poetry, but may have no background in math, to make a leap of the imagination in mathematics. Imaginary numbers entered into mathematics in sixteenth-century Italy and were used with immediate success, but nevertheless presented an intriguing challenge to the imagination. It took more than two hundred years for mathematicians to discover a satisfactory way of "imagining" these numbers.

With discussions about how we comprehend ideas both in poetry and in mathematics, Mazur reviews some of the writings of the earliest explorers of these elusive figures, such as Rafael Bombelli, an engineer who spent most of his life draining the swamps of Tuscany and who in his spare moments composed his great treatise "L'Algebra". Mazur encourages his readers to share the early bafflement of these Renaissance thinkers. Then he shows us, step by step, how to begin imagining, ourselves, imaginary numbers.

Valoracións e recensións

5,0
1 recensión

Acerca do autor

Barry Mazur does his mathematics at Harvard University and lives in Cambridge, Massachussetts, with the writer Grace Dane Mazur.

Valora este libro electrónico

Dános a túa opinión.

Información de lectura

Smartphones e tabletas
Instala a aplicación Google Play Libros para Android e iPad/iPhone. Sincronízase automaticamente coa túa conta e permíteche ler contido en liña ou sen conexión desde calquera lugar.
Portátiles e ordenadores de escritorio
Podes escoitar os audiolibros comprados en Google Play a través do navegador web do ordenador.
Lectores de libros electrónicos e outros dispositivos
Para ler contido en dispositivos de tinta electrónica, como os lectores de libros electrónicos Kobo, é necesario descargar un ficheiro e transferilo ao dispositivo. Sigue as instrucións detalladas do Centro de Axuda para transferir ficheiros a lectores electrónicos admitidos.