Thinking Mathematically


Book Description

Bob Blitzer's books are highly acclaimed for their well-conceived, relevant applications and meticulously annotated examples. This highly anticipated revision achieves the difficult balance between coverage and motivation, while helping readers develop strong problem-solving skills. This book provides readers with the skill building and practice that is so crucial as well as the applications and technology necessary to foster an appreciation of the myriad uses of mathematics. This expanded edition covers voting and apportionment and graphing theory, in addition to a wide range of topics that include set theory, logic, number theory, algebra, consumer mathematics and financial management, geometry, measurement, probability theory and statistics. For anyone interested in refreshing his/her fundamental math skills.




Thinking Mathematically


Book Description




Thinking Mathematically, Books a la Carte Edition


Book Description

NOTE: This edition features the same content as the traditional text in a convenient, three-hole-punched, loose-leaf version. Books a la Carte also offer a great value; this format costs significantly less than a new textbook. Before purchasing, check with your instructor or review your course syllabus to ensure that you select the correct ISBN. For Books a la Carte editions that include MyLab(TM) or Mastering(TM), several versions may exist for each title -- including customized versions for individual schools -- and registrations are not transferable. In addition, you may need a Course ID, provided by your instructor, to register for and use MyLab or Mastering products. For courses in Liberal Arts Mathematics. Show students their world is profoundly mathematical, meaningful, and fun Students often struggle to find the relevance of math in their everyday lives. In Thinking Mathematically, 7th Edition, Bob Blitzer's distinctive and relatable voice engages students in the world of math through compelling, real-world applications -- student-loan debt, time breakdown for an average NFL broadcast, and many more. Understanding that most students in this course are not math majors (and are unlikely to take another math class), Blitzer uses current data compiled from hundreds of books, magazines, and online sources to show students how truly meaningful and fun math can be. Also available with MyLab Math MyLab(TM) is the teaching and learning platform that empowers you to reach every student. By combining trusted author content with digital tools and a flexible platform, MyLab personalizes the learning experience and improves results for each student. Note You are purchasing a standalone product; MyLab Math does not come packaged with this content. Students, if interested in purchasing this title with MyLab Math, ask your instructor to confirm the correct package ISBN and Course ID. Instructors, contact your Pearson representative for more information. If you would like to purchase both the physical text and MyLab Math, search for: 0135167450 / 9780135167458 Thinking Mathematically, Books a la Carte Plus MyLab Math - Access Card Package Package consists of: 0134686519 / 9780134686516 Thinking Mathematically, Books a la Carte Edition 0134705092 / 9780134705095 MyLab Math with Pearson eText - Access Card - for Thinking Mathematically, 7/e




Mathematics without Apologies


Book Description

An insightful reflection on the mathematical soul What do pure mathematicians do, and why do they do it? Looking beyond the conventional answers—for the sake of truth, beauty, and practical applications—this book offers an eclectic panorama of the lives and values and hopes and fears of mathematicians in the twenty-first century, assembling material from a startlingly diverse assortment of scholarly, journalistic, and pop culture sources. Drawing on his personal experiences and obsessions as well as the thoughts and opinions of mathematicians from Archimedes and Omar Khayyám to such contemporary giants as Alexander Grothendieck and Robert Langlands, Michael Harris reveals the charisma and romance of mathematics as well as its darker side. In this portrait of mathematics as a community united around a set of common intellectual, ethical, and existential challenges, he touches on a wide variety of questions, such as: Are mathematicians to blame for the 2008 financial crisis? How can we talk about the ideas we were born too soon to understand? And how should you react if you are asked to explain number theory at a dinner party? Disarmingly candid, relentlessly intelligent, and richly entertaining, Mathematics without Apologies takes readers on an unapologetic guided tour of the mathematical life, from the philosophy and sociology of mathematics to its reflections in film and popular music, with detours through the mathematical and mystical traditions of Russia, India, medieval Islam, the Bronx, and beyond.










Thinking with Diagrams


Book Description

Diagrammatic reasoning is crucial for human cognition. It is hard to think of any forms of science or knowledge without the "intermediary world" of diagrams and diagrammatic representation in thought experiments and/or processes, manifested in forms as divers as notes, tables, schemata, graphs, drawings and maps. Despite their phenomenological and structural-functional differences, these forms of representation share a number of important attributes and epistemic functions. Combining aspects of linguistic and pictorial symbolism, diagrams go beyond the traditional distinction between language and image. They do not only represent, yet intervene in what is represented. Their spatiality, materiality and operativity establish a dynamic tool to exteriorize thinking, thus contributing to the idea of the extended mind. They foster imagination and problem solving, facilitate orientation in knowledge spaces and the discovery of unsuspected relationships. How can the diagrammatic nature of cognitive and knowledge practices be theorized historically as well as systematically? This is what this volume explores by investigating the semiotic dimension of diagrams as to knowledge, information and reasoning, e.g., the 'thing-ness' of diagrams in the history of art, the range of diagrammatic reasoning in logic, mathematics, philosophy and the sciences in general, including the knowledge function of maps.




Physico-theology


Book Description

This first book-length study of physico-theology questions the widespread notion of a steadily advancing early modern separation of religion and science. Beginning around 1650, the emergence of a number of new scientific concepts, methods, and instruments challenged existing syntheses of science and religion. Physico-theology, which embraced the values of personal, empirical observation, was an international movement of the early Enlightenment that focused on the new science to make arguments about divine creation and providence. By reconciling the new science with Christianity across many denominations, physico-theology played a crucial role in diffusing new scientific ideas, assumptions, and interest in the study of nature to a broad public. In this book, sixteen leading scholars contribute a rich array of essays on the terms and scope of the movement, its scientific and religious arguments, and its aesthetic sensibilities. Contributors: Ann Blair, Simona Boscani Leoni, John Hedley Brooke, Nicolas Brucker, Katherine Calloway, Kathleen Crowther, Brendan Dooley, Peter Harrison, Barbara Hunfeld, Eric Jorink, Scott Mandelbrote, Brian W. Ogilvie, Martine Pécharman, Jonathan Sheehan, Anne-Charlott Trepp, Rienk Vermij, Kaspar von Greyerz







Thinking Better


Book Description

One of the world's great mathematicians shows why math is the ultimate timesaver—and how everyone can make their lives easier with a few simple shortcuts. We are often told that hard work is the key to success. But success isn’t about hard work – it’s about shortcuts. Shortcuts allow us to solve one problem quickly so that we can tackle an even bigger one. They make us capable of doing great things. And according to Marcus du Sautoy, math is the very art of the shortcut. Thinking Better is a celebration of how math lets us do more with less. Du Sautoy explores how diagramming revolutionized therapy, why calculus is the greatest shortcut ever invented, whether you must really practice for ten thousand hours to become a concert violinist, and why shortcuts give us an advantage over even the most powerful AI. Throughout, we meet artists, scientists, and entrepreneurs who use mathematical shortcuts to change the world. Delightful, illuminating, and above all practical, Thinking Better is for anyone who has wondered why you should waste time climbing the mountain when you could go around it much faster.