- CRC Press
Yearning for the Impossible: The Surprising Truths of Mathematics, Second Edition
Key Metrics
- John Stillwell
- CRC Press
- Hardcover
- 9781138596214
- -
- -
- Mathematics > Recreations & Games
- English
Book Description
Yearning for the Impossible: The Surprising Truth of Mathematics, Second Edition explores the history of mathematics from the perspective of the creative tension between common sense and the impossible as the author follows the discovery or invention of new concepts that have marked mathematical progress. The author puts these creations into a broader context involving related impossibilities from art, literature, philosophy, and physics. This new edition contains many new exercises and commentaries, clearly discussing a wide range of challenging subjects.
Author Bio
John Stillwell was born in Melbourne, Australia, and taught at Monash University from 1970 until 2001, before moving to USF in 2002.
He was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1994, and his mathematical writing has been honored with the Chauvenet Prize of the Mathematical Association of America in 2005 and the book award of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities in 2009.
Among his best-known books are Mathematics and Its History (3rd edition, 2010) and Yearning for the Impossible (winner of the AJCU book award in 2009).
His interests are history of mathematics in the 19th and 20th centuries, number theory, geometry, algebra, topology, foundations of mathematics.
In Australia during spring and summer.
Source: University of San Francisco
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