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Amazon's Top 10 Popular Maths Books
September 2002
1. How Long is
a Piece of String?
Rob Eastaway, Jeremy
Wyndham
Why do
weather forecasters get it wrong? What are the best tactics
for playing "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" and "The Weakest
Link"? And what is the link between a tin of baked beans and a
men's urinal? These and many other questions are answered in
this book.
Find out more
from Amazon.co.uk
2. Fermat's
Last Theorem
Simon Singh
When Cambridge
mathematician Andrew Wiles announced a solution for Fermat's
last theorem in 1993, it electrified the world of mathematics.
After a flaw was discovered in the proof, Wiles had to work
for another year--he had already laboured in solitude for
seven years--to establish that he had solved the 350-year-old
problem.
Buy signed copies
of this book from Simon's
Bookshop,
or find out more
from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.
3. Why Do
Buses Come in Threes?
Jeremy Wyndham
If
you've ever bought a Lottery ticket and wondered about your
bad luck afterwards, you've had to deal with math. From timing
to probability, it pervades our every waking moment, and even
the most crippling maths-phobia can't make it go
away.
Find out more
from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.
4.How Children
Learn Mathematics
Pamela Liebeck
Aimed at teachers and
parents who are concerned with children from infancy through
the primary years, this manual takes the reader through the
development of abstract thought in children.
Find out more
from Amazon.co.uk.
5. The 85
Ways to Tie a Tie
Thomas Fink, Yong Mao
John Walsh of The Independent describes this as
'A masterpiece of ludicrous arcana by two Cambridge
researchers. It's the best digest of useless knowledge since
the World Encyclopedia of Fly Fishing'.
Find out more
from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.
6. How Stuff
Works
Marshall Brain
This is a "nuts
and bolts" guide to the inside workings of common machines and
devices which takes readers deep inside such items as car
engines, computers, microwave ovens, firecrackers, cellular
phones, DVDs, aeroplanes and submarines, plus the real reason
why people crave chocolate and caffeine.
Find out more
from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.
7. Instability
Rules
Charles Flowers
"..a great
primer for anyone who wants to read a general introduction to
some of the most important ideas that underpin much of today's
science.."
Find out more
from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.
8. The
Mystery of the Aleph
Amir D. Aczel
The
search for infinity, that sublime and barely comprehensible
mystery, has exercised both mathematicians and theologians
over many generations: Jewish mystics in particular laboured
with elaborate numerological schema to imagine the pure
nothingness of infinity, while scientists such as Galileo, the
great astronomer, and Georg Cantor, the inventor of modern set
theory (as well as a gifted Shakespeare scholar), brought
their training to bear on the unimaginable infinitude of
numbers and of space, seeking the key to the
universe.
Find out more
from Amazon.co.uk.
9. What Are
the Chances?
Bart K. Holland
Our lives
are governed by chance. But what, exactly, is chance? In this
book, statistician and storyteller Bart Holland takes readers
on a tour of the world of probability. Weaving together tales
from real life - from the spread of the bubonic plague in
medieval Europe or the number of Prussian cavalrymen kicked to
death by their horses, through IQ test results and deaths by
voodoo curse, to why you have to wait in line for rides at
Disneyworld - Holland captures the reader's imagination with
surprising examples of probability in action, everyday events
that can profoundly affect our lives but are controlled by
just one number.
Find out more
from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.
10. The Maths
Gene
Keith Devlin
Where does the human ability to perform
mathematical reasoning come from? This book claims that the
answer is closely related to the evolutionary changes in the
human brain that gave rise to language. It lies within our
genes, and more specifically within our inherent
pattern-making abilities.
Find out more
from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com. |
