In 2010, French mathematician Cédric Villani received the Fields Medal, the most coveted prize in mathematics, in recognition of a proof which he devised with his close collaborator Clément Mouhot to explain one of the most surprising theories in classical physics. Birth of aTheorem is Villani's own account of the years leading up to the award. It invites readers inside the mind of a great mathematician as he wrestles with the most important work of his career. But you don't have to understand nonlinear Landau damping to love Birth of aTheorem. It doesn't simplify or overexplain; rather, it invites readers into collaboration. Villani's diaries, emails, and musings enmesh you in the process of discovery. You join him in unproductive lulls and late-night breakthroughs. You're privy to the dining-hall conversations at the world's greatest research institutions. Villani shares his favorite songs, his love of manga, and the imaginative stories he tells his children. In mathematics, as in any creative work, it is the thinker's whole life that propels discovery—and with Birth of aTheorem, Cédric Villani welcomes you into his.

How a simple equation reshaped mathematics Leonhard Euler’s polyhedron formula describes the structure of many objects—from soccer balls and gemstones to Buckminster Fuller’s buildings and giant all-carbon molecules. Yet Euler’s theorem is so simple it can be explained to a child. From ancient Greek geometry to today’s cutting-edge research, Euler’s Gem celebrates the discovery of Euler’s beloved polyhedron formula and its far-reaching impact on topology, the study of shapes. Using wonderful examples and numerous illustrations, David Richeson presents this mathematical idea’s many elegant and unexpected applications, such as showing why there is always some windless spot on earth, how to measure the acreage of a tree farm by counting trees, and how many crayons are needed to color any map. Filled with a who’s who of brilliant mathematicians who questioned, refined, and contributed to a remarkable theorem’s development, Euler’s Gem will fascinate every mathematics enthusiast. This paperback edition contains a new preface by the author.

This book is an introduction to the language and standard proof methods of mathematics. It is a bridge from the computational courses (such as calculus or differential equations) that students typically encounter in their first year of college to a more abstract outlook. It lays a foundation for more theoretical courses such as topology, analysis and abstract algebra. Although it may be more meaningful to the student who has had some calculus, there is really no prerequisite other than a measure of mathematical maturity.

Prime Obsession taught us not to be afraid to put the math in a math book. Unknown Quantity heeds the lesson well. So grab your graphing calculators, slip out the slide rules, and buckle up! John Derbyshire is introducing us to algebra through the ages-and it promises to be just what his die-hard fans have been waiting for. "Here is the story of algebra." With this deceptively simple introduction, we begin our journey. Flanked by formulae, shadowed by roots and radicals, escorted by an expert who navigates unerringly on our behalf, we are guaranteed safe passage through even the most treacherous mathematical terrain. Our first encounter with algebraic arithmetic takes us back 38 centuries to the time of Abraham and Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, Ur and Haran, Sodom and Gomorrah. Moving deftly from Abel's proof to the higher levels of abstraction developed by Galois, we are eventually introduced to what algebraists have been focusing on during the last century. As we travel through the ages, it becomes apparent that the invention of algebra was more than the start of a specific discipline of mathematics-it was also the birth of a new way of thinking that clarified both basic numeric concepts as well as our perception of the world around us. Algebraists broke new ground when they discarded the simple search for solutions to equations and concentrated instead on abstract groups. This dramatic shift in thinking revolutionized mathematics. Written for those among us who are unencumbered by a fear of formulae, Unknown Quantity delivers on its promise to present a history of algebra. Astonishing in its bold presentation of the math and graced with narrative authority, our journey through the world of algebra is at once intellectually satisfying and pleasantly challenging.

In the first decade of the twentieth century as Albert Einstein began formulating a revolutionary theory of gravity, the Italian mathematician Gregorio Ricci was entering the later stages of what appeared to be a productive if not particularly memorable career, devoted largely to what his colleagues regarded as the dogged development of a mathematical language he called the absolute differential calculus. In 1912, the work of these two dedicated scientists would intersect—and physics and mathematics would never be the same. Einstein's Italian Mathematicians chronicles the lives and intellectual contributions of Ricci and his brilliant student Tullio Levi-Civita, including letters, interviews, memoranda, and other personal and professional papers, to tell the remarkable, little-known story of how two Italian academicians, of widely divergent backgrounds and temperaments, came to provide the indispensable mathematical foundation—today known as the tensor calculus—for general relativity.

Löwenheim's theorem reflects a critical point in the history of mathematical logic, for it marks the birth of model theory--that is, the part of logic that concerns the relationship between formal theories and their models. However, while the original proofs of other, comparably significant theorems are well understood, this is not the case with Löwenheim's theorem. For example, the very result that scholars attribute to Löwenheim today is not the one that Skolem--a logician raised in the algebraic tradition, like Löwenheim--appears to have attributed to him. In The Birth of Model Theory, Calixto Badesa provides both the first sustained, book-length analysis of Löwenheim's proof and a detailed description of the theoretical framework--and, in particular, of the algebraic tradition--that made the theorem possible. Badesa's three main conclusions amount to a completely new interpretation of the proof, one that sharply contradicts the core of modern scholarship on the topic. First, Löwenheim did not use an infinitary language to prove his theorem; second, the functional interpretation of Löwenheim's normal form is anachronistic, and inappropriate for reconstructing the proof; and third, Löwenheim did not aim to prove the theorem's weakest version but the stronger version Skolem attributed to him. This book will be of considerable interest to historians of logic, logicians, philosophers of logic, and philosophers of mathematics.

The four-colour theorem is one of the famous problems of mathematics, that frustrated generations of mathematicians from its birth in 1852 to its solution (using substantial assistance from electronic computers) in 1976. The theorem asks whether four colours are sufficient to colour all conceivable maps, in such a way that countries with a common border are coloured with different colours. The book discusses various attempts to solve this problem, and some of the mathematics which developed out of these attempts. Much of this mathematics has developed a life of its own, and forms a fascinating part of the subject now known as graph theory. The book is designed to be self-contained, and develops all the graph-theoretical tools needed as it goes along. It includes all the elementary graph theory that should be included in an introduction to the subject, before concentrating on specific topics relevant to the four-colour problem. Part I covers basic graph theory, Euler's polyhedral formula, and the first published false `proof' of the four-colour theorem. Part II ranges widely through related topics, including map-colouring on surfaces with holes, the famous theorems of Kuratowski, Vizing, and Brooks, the conjectures of Hadwiger and Hajos, and much more besides. In Part III we return to the four-colour theorem, and study in detail the methods which finally cracked the problem.

Growing demands for the quality, safety, and security of software can only be satisfied by the rigorous application of formal methods during software design. This book methodically investigates the potential of first-order logic automated theorem provers for applications in software engineering. Illustrated by complete case studies on protocol verification, verification of security protocols, and logic-based software reuse, this book provides techniques for assessing the prover's capabilities and for selecting and developing an appropriate interface architecture.

Linear algebra permeates mathematics, as well as physics and engineering. In this text for junior and senior undergraduates, Sadun treats diagonalization as a central tool in solving complicated problems in these subjects by reducing coupled linear evolution problems to a sequence of simpler decoupled problems. This is the Decoupling Principle. Traditionally, difference equations, Markov chains, coupled oscillators, Fourier series, the wave equation, the Schrodinger equation, and Fourier transforms are treated separately, often in different courses. Here, they are treated as particular instances of the decoupling principle, and their solutions are remarkably similar. By understanding this general principle and the many applications given in the book, students will be able to recognize it and to apply it in many other settings. Sadun includes some topics relating to infinite-dimensional spaces. He does not present a general theory, but enough so as to apply the decoupling principle to the wave equation, leading to Fourier series and the Fourier transform. The second edition contains a series of Explorations. Most are numerical labs in which the reader is asked to use standard computer software to look deeper into the subject. Some explorations are theoretical, for instance, relating linear algebra to quantum mechanics. There is also an appendix reviewing basic matrix operations and another with solutions to a third of the exercises.