Beskrivelse
How does mathematics enable us to send pictures from space back to Earth? Where does the bell-shaped curve come from? Why do you need only 23 people in a room for a 50/50 chance of two of them sharing the same birthday? In Strange Curves, Counting Rabbits, and Other Mathematical Explorations, Keith Ball highlights how ideas, mostly from pure math, can answer these questions and many more. Drawing on areas of mathematics from probability theory, number theory, and geometry, he explores a wide range of concepts, some more light-hearted, others central to the development of the field and used daily by mathematicians, physicists, and engineers. Content: Shannon’s free lunch — Counting dots — Fermat’s Little Theorem and infinite decimals — Strange curves — Shared birthdays, normal bells — Stirling works — Spare change, pools of blood — Fibonacci’s rabbits revisited — Chasing the curve — Rational and irrational.
