Geometry and the Imagination
Title | Geometry and the Imagination PDF eBook |
Author | D. Hilbert |
Publisher | American Mathematical Soc. |
Total Pages | 357 |
Release | 2021-03-17 |
Genre | Education |
ISBN | 1470463024 |
This remarkable book has endured as a true masterpiece of mathematical exposition. There are few mathematics books that are still so widely read and continue to have so much to offer—even after more than half a century has passed! The book is overflowing with mathematical ideas, which are always explained clearly and elegantly, and above all, with penetrating insight. It is a joy to read, both for beginners and experienced mathematicians. “Hilbert and Cohn-Vossen” is full of interesting facts, many of which you wish you had known before. It's also likely that you have heard those facts before, but surely wondered where they could be found. The book begins with examples of the simplest curves and surfaces, including thread constructions of certain quadrics and other surfaces. The chapter on regular systems of points leads to the crystallographic groups and the regular polyhedra in R 3 R3. In this chapter, they also discuss plane lattices. By considering unit lattices, and throwing in a small amount of number theory when necessary, they effortlessly derive Leibniz's series: π/4=1−1/3+1/5−1/7+−… π/4=1−1/3+1/5−1/7+−…. In the section on lattices in three and more dimensions, the authors consider sphere-packing problems, including the famous Kepler problem. One of the most remarkable chapters is “Projective Configurations”. In a short introductory section, Hilbert and Cohn-Vossen give perhaps the most concise and lucid description of why a general geometer would care about projective geometry and why such an ostensibly plain setup is truly rich in structure and ideas. Here, we see regular polyhedra again, from a different perspective. One of the high points of the chapter is the discussion of Schlafli's Double-Six, which leads to the description of the 27 lines on the general smooth cubic surface. As is true throughout the book, the magnificent drawings in this chapter immeasurably help the reader. A particularly intriguing section in the chapter on differential geometry is Eleven Properties of the Sphere. Which eleven properties of such a ubiquitous mathematical object caught their discerning eye and why? Many mathematicians are familiar with the plaster models of surfaces found in many mathematics departments. The book includes pictures of some of the models that are found in the Göttingen collection. Furthermore, the mysterious lines that mark these surfaces are finally explained! The chapter on kinematics includes a nice discussion of linkages and the geometry of configurations of points and rods that are connected and, perhaps, constrained in some way. This topic in geometry has become increasingly important in recent times, especially in applications to robotics. This is another example of a simple situation that leads to a rich geometry. It would be hard to overestimate the continuing influence Hilbert-Cohn-Vossen's book has had on mathematicians of this century. It surely belongs in the “pantheon” of great mathematics books.
The Mathematical Imagination
Title | The Mathematical Imagination PDF eBook |
Author | Matthew Handelman |
Publisher | Fordham Univ Press |
Total Pages | 256 |
Release | 2019-03-05 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 0823283852 |
This book offers an archeology of the undeveloped potential of mathematics for critical theory. As Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno first conceived of the critical project in the 1930s, critical theory steadfastly opposed the mathematization of thought. Mathematics flattened thought into a dangerous positivism that led reason to the barbarism of World War II. The Mathematical Imagination challenges this narrative, showing how for other German-Jewish thinkers, such as Gershom Scholem, Franz Rosenzweig, and Siegfried Kracauer, mathematics offered metaphors to negotiate the crises of modernity during the Weimar Republic. Influential theories of poetry, messianism, and cultural critique, Handelman shows, borrowed from the philosophy of mathematics, infinitesimal calculus, and geometry in order to refashion cultural and aesthetic discourse. Drawn to the austerity and muteness of mathematics, these friends and forerunners of the Frankfurt School found in mathematical approaches to negativity strategies to capture the marginalized experiences and perspectives of Jews in Germany. Their vocabulary, in which theory could be both mathematical and critical, is missing from the intellectual history of critical theory, whether in the work of second generation critical theorists such as Jürgen Habermas or in contemporary critiques of technology. The Mathematical Imagination shows how Scholem, Rosenzweig, and Kracauer’s engagement with mathematics uncovers a more capacious vision of the critical project, one with tools that can help us intervene in our digital and increasingly mathematical present.
Geometry and the Imagination
Title | Geometry and the Imagination PDF eBook |
Author | David Hilbert |
Publisher | |
Total Pages | 357 |
Release | 1952 |
Genre | Geometry, Non-Euclidean |
ISBN | 9780821819982 |
Matter, Imagination, and Geometry
Title | Matter, Imagination, and Geometry PDF eBook |
Author | Dmitriĭ Vladimirovich Nikulin |
Publisher | Ashgate Publishing |
Total Pages | 328 |
Release | 2002 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN |
"This book considers conditions of applicability of mathematics to the study of natural phenomena. The possibility of such an application is one of the fundamental assumptions underlying the enormous theoretical and practical success of modern science. Addressing problems of matter, substance, infinity, number, structure of cognitive faculties, imagination, and of construction of mathematical object, Dmitri Nikulin examines mathematical (geometrical) objects in their relation to geometrical or intelligible matter and to imagination. The author explores questions in the history of philosophy and science, particularly in late antiquity and early modernity. The focus is on key thinkers Plotinus and Descartes (with the occasional appearance of Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Proclus, Newton and others), in whom the fundamental presuppositions of ripe antiquity and of early modernity find their definite expression."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Mathematics and the Imagination
Title | Mathematics and the Imagination PDF eBook |
Author | Edward Kasner |
Publisher | Courier Corporation |
Total Pages | 400 |
Release | 2013-04-22 |
Genre | Mathematics |
ISBN | 0486320278 |
With wit and clarity, the authors progress from simple arithmetic to calculus and non-Euclidean geometry. Their subjects: geometry, plane and fancy; puzzles that made mathematical history; tantalizing paradoxes; more. Includes 169 figures.
Sacred Geometry
Title | Sacred Geometry PDF eBook |
Author | Robert Lawlor |
Publisher | |
Total Pages | 112 |
Release | 1994 |
Genre | |
ISBN |
Geometry and the Imagination
Title | Geometry and the Imagination PDF eBook |
Author | A. Renwick Sheen |
Publisher | |
Total Pages | 258 |
Release | 2002-01-01 |
Genre | Geometry |
ISBN | 9780962397820 |
Geometry is a central subject in Steiner-Waldorf schools, weaving into different subject areas throughout the 12 years. Geometry helps children explore both the outward world, and the inner human world. It helps them develop spacial harmony, and their analytical thinking.This comprehensive book has sections on Pre-Geometry, First Lessons, Pentagon and Pentagram, The Four Rules of Arithmetic, The Five Regular Solids, The Conic Sections, and Projective Geometry.It will be a particularly valuable resource for teachers of Years 6 to 8, and into High School.