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Throughout the history of mathematics, maximum and minimum problems have played an important role in the evolution of the field. Many beautiful and important problems have appeared in a variety of branches of mathematics and physics, as well as in other fields of sciences. The greatest scientists of the past - Euclid, Archimedes, Heron, the Bernoullis, Newton and many others - took part in seeking solutions to these concrete problems. The solutions stimulated the development of the theory, and, as a result, techniques were elaborated that made possible the solution of a tremendous variety of problems by a single method. This book, copublished with the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), presents fifteen "stories" designed to acquaint readers with the central concepts of the theory of maxima and minima, as well as with its illustrious history. Unlike most AMS publications, the book is accessible to high school students and would likely be of interest to a wide variety of readers. In Part One, the author familiarizes readers with many concrete problems that lead to discussion of the work of some of the greatest mathematicians of all time. Part Two introduces a method for solving maximum and minimum problems that originated with Lagrange. While the content of this method has varied constantly, its basic conception has endured for over two centuries. The final story is addressed primarily to those who teach mathematics, for it impinges on the question of how and why to teach. Throughout the book, the author strives to show how the analysis of diverse facts gives rise to a general idea, how this idea is transformed, how it is enriched by new content, and how to remains the same in spite of these changes.

In this highly regarded text for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, the author develops the calculus of variations both for its intrinsic interest and for its powerful applications to modern mathematical physics. Topics include first and second variations of an integral, generalizations, isoperimetrical problems, least action, special relativity, elasticity, more. 1963 edition.

Presents hundreds of extreme value problems, examples, and solutions primarily through Euclidean geometry Unified approach to the subject, with emphasis on geometric, algebraic, analytic, and combinatorial reasoning Applications to physics, engineering, and economics Ideal for use at the junior and senior undergraduate level, with wide appeal to students, teachers, professional mathematicians, and puzzle enthusiasts

Describes techniques for solving problems in maxima and minima other than the methods of calculus.

Broad-spectrum approach to important topic. Explores the classic theory of minima and maxima, classical calculus of variations, simplex technique and linear programming, optimality and dynamic programming, more. 1969 edition.

The topics covered in this text are those usually covered in a full year's course in finite mathematics or mathematics for liberal arts students. They correspond very closely to the topics I have taught at Western New England College to freshmen business and liberal arts students. They include set theory, logic, matrices and determinants, functions and graph ing, basic differential and integral calculus, probability and statistics, and trigonometry. Because this is an introductory text, none of these topics is dealt with in great depth. The idea is to introduce the student to some of the basic concepts in mathematics along with some of their applications. I believe that this text is self-contained and can be used successfully by any college student who has completed at least two years of high school mathematics including one year of algebra. In addition, no previous knowledge of any programming language is necessary. The distinguishing feature of this text is that the student is given the opportunity to learn the mathematical concepts via A Programming Lan guage (APL). APL was developed by Kenneth E. Iverson while he was at Harvard University and was presented in a book by Dr. Iverson entitled A i Programming Language in 1962. He invented APL for educational purpo ses. That is, APL was designed to be a consistent, unambiguous, and powerful notation for communicating mathematical ideas. In 1966, APL became available on a time-sharing system at IBM.