Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games columns in Scientific American inspired and entertained several generations of mathematicians and scientists. Gardner in his crystal-clear prose illuminated corners of mathematics, especially recreational mathematics, that most people had no idea existed. His playful spirit and inquisitive nature invite the reader into an exploration of beautiful mathematical ideas along with him. These columns were both a revelation and a gift when he wrote them; no one--before Gardner--had written about mathematics like this. They continue to be a marvel. This is the original 1992 edition and contains columns published from 1978-1979.

The definitive work of Martin Gardner's brilliant, seven-decades-long career, "The Night Is Large" collects 54 of the most significant essays by this popular writer best known for his "Mathematical Games" columns which appeared in "Scientific American" magazine for more than 25 years.

Best known as the longtime writer of the Mathematical Games column for Scientific American—which introduced generations of readers to the joys of recreational mathematics—Martin Gardner has for decades pursued a parallel career as a devastatingly effective debunker of what he once famously dubbed "fads and fallacies in the name of science." It is mainly in this latter role that he is onstage in this collection of choice essays. When You Were a Tadpole and I Was a Fish takes aim at a gallery of amusing targets, ranging from Ann Coulter's qualifications as an evolutionary biologist to the logical fallacies of precognition and extrasensory perception, from Santa Claus to The Wizard of Oz, from mutilated chessboards to the little-known "one-poem poet" Langdon Smith (the original author of this volume's title line). The writings assembled here fall naturally into seven broad categories: Science, Bogus Science, Mathematics, Logic, Literature, Religion and Philosophy, and Politics. Under each heading, Gardner displays an awesome level of erudition combined with a wicked sense of humor.

In a society begging to be duped, Martin Gardner, the most devastating debunker of scientific fraud and chicanery of our time, ranges here from science and mathematics to literature, philosophy, religion, and mysticism. With keen skepticism, he skewers the fallacies of pseudoscience, from Dr. Bruno Bettelheim's erroneous theory of autism to the farce of Primal Scream therapy, and he examines the bizarre tangents produced by Freudians and deconstructionists in their critiques of "Little Red Riding Hood." Book jacket.

This book contains scores of intriguing puzzles and paradoxes from Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland, whose interests ranged from inventing new games like Arithmetical Croquet to important problems in symbolic logic and propositional calculus. Written by Carroll expert and well-known mathematics author Martin Gardner, this tour through Carroll's inventions is both fun and informative.

There are new and important advancements in today’s complexity theories in ICT and requires an extraordinary perspective on the interaction between living systems and information technologies. With human evolution and its continuous link with the development of new tools and environmental changes, technological advancements are paving the way for new evolutionary steps. Complexity Science, Living Systems, and Reflexing Interfaces: New Models and Perspectives is a collection of research provided by academics and scholars aiming to introduce important advancements in areas such as artificial intelligence, evolutionary computation, neural networks, and much more. This scholarly piece will provide contributions that will define the line of development in complexity science.

This 2003 book provides an analysis of combinatorial games - games not involving chance or hidden information. It contains a fascinating collection of articles by some well-known names in the field, such as Elwyn Berlekamp and John Conway, plus other researchers in mathematics and computer science, together with some top game players. The articles run the gamut from theoretical approaches (infinite games, generalizations of game values, 2-player cellular automata, Alpha-Beta pruning under partial orders) to other games (Amazons, Chomp, Dot-and-Boxes, Go, Chess, Hex). Many of these advances reflect the interplay of the computer science and the mathematics. The book ends with a bibliography by A. Fraenkel and a list of combinatorial game theory problems by R. K. Guy. Like its predecessor, Games of No Chance, this should be on the shelf of all serious combinatorial games enthusiasts.

This book is an innovative introduction to Python and its audio-visual capabilities for beginning programmers; a resource for expert programmers and of interest to anyone involved in music. It is structured around four extensible, audio-visual projects on music and sound. The beginner will appreciate the 'need to know' basis of the presentation of Python for each project, and expert programmers will be able to go straight to the project code, run it and then extend it as they see fit. Musically interested readers will enjoy the historical and theoretical material at the beginning of each project, and it may even tempt them to try some coding - it is not too difficult! The four projects the book focuses on are all self-contained, but can be extended to incorporate aspects of the others. Above all this book is suited for self-study, which should be playful (pun intended!).

The work done in chaotic modeling and simulation during the last decades has changed our views of the world around us and has introduced new scientific tools, methods and techniques. Advanced topics of these achievements are included in this volume on Chaos Theory which focuses on Chaotic Modeling, Simulation and Applications of the nonlinear phenomena. This volume includes the best papers presented in the 3rd International Conference on CHAOS. This interdisciplinary conference attracted people from many scientific fields dealing with chaos, nonlinear dynamics, fractals and the works presented and the papers included here are of particular interest that could provide a broad understanding of chaos in its various forms. The chapters relate to many fields of chaos including Dynamical and Nonlinear Systems, Attractors and Fractals. Hydro-Fluid Dynamics and Mechanics, Chaos in Meteorology and Cosmology, Chaos in Biology and Genetics, Chaotic Control, Chaos in Economy and Markets, and Computer Composition and Chaotic Simulations, including related applications, are presented.