Author : Amir D. Aczel
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 278 pages
File Size : 40,39 MB
Release : 2001-08-28
Category : Mathematics
ISBN : 0743422996
A compelling narrative that blends the story of infinity with the tragic tale of a tormented and brilliant mathematician.
Author : Paulo Coelho
Publisher : HarperCollins UK
Page : 324 pages
File Size : 32,17 MB
Release : 2011-09-01
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 0007435533
Another stunning novel by the author of The Alchemist.
Author : Amir D. Aczel
Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
Page : 199 pages
File Size : 35,8 MB
Release : 2015-01-06
Category : Mathematics
ISBN : 1466879106
“A captivating story, not just an intellectual quest but a personal one . . . gripping [and] filled with the passion and wonder of numbers.” —The New York Times Virtually everything in our lives is digital, numerical, or quantified. But the story of how and where we got these numerals, which we so depend on, has for thousands of years been shrouded in mystery. Finding Zero is the saga of Amir Aczel’s lifelong obsession: to find the original sources of our numerals, perhaps the greatest abstraction the human mind has ever created. Aczel has doggedly crisscrossed the ancient world, scouring dusty, moldy texts, cross-examining so-called scholars who offered wildly differing sets of facts, and ultimately penetrating deep into a Cambodian jungle to find a definitive proof. Here, he takes the reader along for the ride. The history begins with Babylonian cuneiform numbers, followed by Greek and Roman letter numerals. Then Aczel asks: Where do the numbers we use today, the so-called Hindu-Arabic numerals, come from? It is this search that leads him to explore uncharted territory on a grand quest into India, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and ultimately into the wilds of Cambodia. There he is blown away to find the earliest zero—the keystone of our entire system of numbers—on a crumbling, vine-covered wall of a seventh-century temple adorned with eaten-away erotic sculptures. While on this odyssey, Aczel meets a host of fascinating characters: academics in search of truth, jungle trekkers looking for adventure, surprisingly honest politicians, shameless smugglers, and treacherous archaeological thieves—who finally reveal where our numbers come from. “A historical adventure that doubles as a surprisingly engaging math lesson . . . rip-roaring exploits and escapades.” —Publishers Weekly
Author : Jorge Luis Borges
Publisher : Plume Books
Page : 292 pages
File Size : 23,27 MB
Release : 1978
Category : Argentina
ISBN :
"Dazzling and unmistakable in style, resonant in meaning, Jorge Luis Borges' 'The Aleph and Other Stories' contains the best of Borges' fiction. Included also is a lengthy autobiographical essay written especially for this volume. The twenty stories in this book cover the whole span and all the various facets of Borges' forty-year career as a short story writer. The collection is the most definitive and comprehensive available in English."--Jacket.
Author : Amir D Aczel
Publisher : Basic Books
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 38,78 MB
Release : 2009-04-29
Category : Mathematics
ISBN : 0786732881
Nicolas Bourbaki, whose mathematical publications began to appear in the late 1930s and continued to be published through most of the twentieth century, was a direct product as well as a major force behind an important revolution that took place in the early decades of the twentieth century that completely changed Western culture. Pure mathematics, the area of Bourbaki's work, seems on the surface to be an abstract field of human study with no direct connection with the real world. In reality, however, it is closely intertwined with the general culture that surrounds it. Major developments in mathematics have often followed important trends in popular culture; developments in mathematics have acted as harbingers of change in the surrounding human culture. The seeds of change, the beginnings of the revolution that swept the Western world in the early decades of the twentieth century -- both in mathematics and in other areas -- were sown late in the previous century. This is the story both of Bourbaki and the world that created him in that time. It is the story of an elaborate intellectual joke -- because Bourbaki, one of the foremost mathematicians of his day -- never existed.
Author : Samuel Koiki
Publisher : WestBow Press
Page : 571 pages
File Size : 10,39 MB
Release : 2019-01-21
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1973627442
Most people will be shocked to know that Jesus appears ten times (1000%) more in the Old Testament than he does in the New Testament. In fact Jesus the Aleph-Tav appears 9612 times (uninterpreted) in the Old Testament but only 983 times in the New Testament. The Aleph-Tav is comprised of the first and last characters of the Hebrew language, just as the alpha and the omega are the first and last characters of the Greek language. The Aleph-Tav is also the Hebrew character symbol believed to be the signature of Christ found only in the Hebrew Bible, represented by the head of a bull and the sign of a cross. Both character symbols clearly point us to Christ, the Lamb of God who died for humanity on the cross of Calvary. I AM the Aleph-Tav unveils the presence of Jesus in the Old Testament, first by taking a deep dive into the mystery of the Aleph-Tav. Although this symbol appears almost ten thousand times in the Old Testament, it was never interpreted into any other language, and author Samuel Koiki shows how there are parallels between the Old Testament and the statements Jesus made to John in the book of Revelation, where Jesus proclaimed that he was the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the endor, in a different way, the Aleph-Tav. Was Jesus telling John that he was there all along when the universe was created in Genesis? Perhaps he was telling John that he indeed is the Creator. Was he the one who split the Red Sea, as told in Exodus? Was he the Passover lamb in Leviticus, the high priest in Numbers, the rock that brought forth water in Deuteronomy, or the commander of the Lords army in Judges? Was he telling John that he is on every page of the Old Testament, all the way to Malachi, where he is the Son of righteousness who brings healing? This book unlike any other will bless and enrich you abundantly . Sit back and embark on this incredible journey with me.
Author : Vikram Seth
Publisher : Penguin Books India
Page : 1372 pages
File Size : 28,78 MB
Release : 1994
Category : India
ISBN : 9780140230338
Author : Marc-Alain Ouaknin
Publisher :
Page : 392 pages
File Size : 45,28 MB
Release : 1999
Category : Art
ISBN :
Traces the origins of the alphabet beginning with the first pictograms of 5,000 years ago, describing the changes the alphabet has gone through in different countries and cultures.
Author : Stephen Alter
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 299 pages
File Size : 13,46 MB
Release : 2015-03-10
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1628725427
Hailed as a "wondrous book" by Gretel Ehrlich, and winner of the Kekoo Naoroji Book Award for Himalayan Literature—a journey of healing that becomes a pilgrimage for the soul. Stephen Alter was raised by American missionary parents in the hill station of Mussoorie, in the foothills of the Himalayas, where he and his wife, Ameeta, now live. Their idyllic existence was brutally interrupted when four armed intruders invaded their house and viciously attacked them, leaving them for dead. The violent assault and the trauma of almost dying left him questioning assumptions he had lived by since childhood. For the first time, he encountered the face of evil and the terror of the unknown. He felt like a foreigner in the land of his birth. This book is his account of a series of treks he took in the high Himalayas following his convalescence—to Bandar Punch (the monkey’s tail), Nanda Devi, the second highest mountain in India, and Mt. Kailash in Tibet. He set himself this goal to prove that he had healed mentally as well as physically and to re-knit his connection to his homeland. Undertaken out of sorrow, the treks become a moving soul journey, a way to rediscover mountains in his inner landscape. Weaving together observations of the natural world, Himalayan history, folklore and mythology, as well as encounters with other pilgrims along the way, Stephen Alter has given us a moving meditation on the solace of high places, and on the hidden meanings and enduring mystery of mountains.
Author : Amir D. Aczel
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 48,79 MB
Release : 2007-11-01
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1416588434
In 1851, struggling, self-taught physicist Léon Foucault performed a dramatic demonstration inside the Panthéon in Paris. By tracking a pendulum's path as it swung repeatedly across the interior of the large ceremonial hall, Foucault offered the first definitive proof -- before an audience that comprised the cream of Parisian society, including the future emperor, Napoleon III -- that the earth revolves on its axis. Through careful, primary research, world-renowned author Amir Aczel has revealed the life of a gifted physicist who had almost no formal education in science, and yet managed to succeed despite the adversity he suffered at the hands of his peers. The range and breadth of Foucault's discoveries is astonishing: He gave us the modern electric compass, devised an electric microscope, invented photographic technology, and made remarkable deductions about color theory, heat waves, and the speed of light. Yet until now so little has been known about his life. Richly detailed and evocative, Pendulum tells of the illustrious period in France during the Second Empire; of Foucault's relationship with Napoleon III, a colorful character in his own right; and -- most notably -- of the crucial triumph of science over religion. Dr. Aczel has crafted a fascinating narrative based on the life of this most astonishing and largely unrecognized scientist, whose findings answered many age-old scientific questions and posed new ones that are still relevant today.
