Figuring It Out
Entertaining Encounters With Everyday Math
by Nuno Crato
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Figuring It Out
The appeal of mathematics can be conveyed in many ways. In Figuring It Out, Nuno Crato adopts a literary approach, treating us to 56 fascinating essays that reflect the role of math in everyday life as well as in geography, cryptography, geometry, probability and beyond.
Open these pages and you’ll find insights about:
• Why the other traffic lane moves faster. Researchers running simulations have proven that two adjacent lanes of traffic can be moving at the same average speed, but even so each vehicle spends more time being passed than in passing others.
• When the shortest route between two points is a curve. We meet Pedro Nunes (1502–1579), who first worked out the full implications of navigation on a curved globe, based on the fact that the shortest path follows the arc of a great circle.
• What Alice and Bob can do to keep their conversation a secret. In detailing the history of public key cryptography, Crato shows how the use of mathematics underlies the security of many forms of online commerce and communications.
• How the golden ratio is calculated. The so-called “divine proportion,” equal to (1 + √5)/2 = 1.618…, is an irrational number that appears in many geometrical constructions; a rectangle with a side ratio of 1.618 to 1 is often judged to be especially appealing.
• When random numbers seem nonrandom. According to Benford’s Law, the probability for a digit k to be the first significant digit in a number is not 1/9, but log10(k+1)k. Thus the chance that 1 is the first significant digit is 30.1%.
With his dry sense of humor, Crato is the ideal guide to these other topics. As engaging as it is far-ranging, Figuring It Out celebrates the ubiquitous presence and power of math in our lives.
Hardcover : 227 pages
Publisher: Springer-Verlag New York ( October 30, 2010 )
Item #: 13-307807
ISBN: 9783642048326
Product Dimensions: 6.125 x 9.25 inches
Product Weight: 19.0 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
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