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Mathematical Treks: From Surreal Numbers to Magic Circles

Mathematical Treks

From Surreal Numbers to Magic Circles

Ivars Peterson

Series: Spectrum

 

The first book in a joint publishing venture between the MAA and Science News

In 1995, Ivars Peterson and his colleagues at Science News began planning the magazine's debut on the World Wide Web. Ivars Peterson, who had long admired Martin Gardner's "Mathematical Games" columns in Scientific American decided to write a weekly on-line column about various aspects of mathematics. The MAA offered to post these articles on the MAA website, which became the immensely popular "Math Treks" column in MAA Online (/news/columns.html).

The first article appeared on MAA Online on February 26, 1996 on the chess match between world champion Garry Kasparov and Chess computer Deep Blue. Since then he has written more than 250 articles on a wide range of topics in mathematics and its applications, along wire a glance at old puzzles, famous problems and historic events: anything mathematical that happens to catch his eye.

Contents: Calculation and the Chess Master � The Cow in the Classroom � A Passion for Pi � Computing in the Surreal Realm � Pythagoras Plays Ball � Recycling Topology � Soap Films and Grid Walks � Mating Games and Lizards � Random Bits � Spreading Rumors � Toward A Fairer Expansion Draft � Cracking the Ball-Control Myth � Math and a Music Education; Sprouts � Groups, Graphs, and Paul Erdös � DNA Adds Up, Computing with the EDSAC � Waring Experiments Old and New Arithmetic � Matchsticks in the Summer � Tricky Crossing � Beyond the Ellipse � Trouble with Wild-Card Poker � Prime Theorems � Champion Numbers � A Perfect Collaboration � Fragments of the Past � More than Magic Squares � Rolling with Reuleaux � Next in Line � Pennies in a Tray � Fair Play and Dreidel � Euclid's Fourteenth Book.

View Mathematical Treks' detailed bibliography, with dozens of links to resources of further interest!

Catalog Code: TRK
150 pp., Paperbound, 2001
ISBN 0-88385-537-2
List $24.95 MAA Member:$19.95
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