The Best Writing on Mathematics 2012

Front Cover
Mircea Pitici
Princeton University Press, 2013 - Mathematics - 288 pages

The year's finest writing on mathematics from around the world

This annual anthology brings together the year's finest mathematics writing from around the world. Featuring promising new voices alongside some of the foremost names in the field, The Best Writing on Mathematics 2012 makes available to a wide audience many articles not easily found anywhere else--and you don't need to be a mathematician to enjoy them. These writings offer surprising insights into the nature, meaning, and practice of mathematics today. They delve into the history, philosophy, teaching, and everyday occurrences of math, and take readers behind the scenes of today's hottest mathematical debates. Here Robert Lang explains mathematical aspects of origami foldings; Terence Tao discusses the frequency and distribution of the prime numbers; Timothy Gowers and Mario Livio ponder whether mathematics is invented or discovered; Brian Hayes describes what is special about a ball in five dimensions; Mark Colyvan glosses on the mathematics of dating; and much, much more.

In addition to presenting the year's most memorable writings on mathematics, this must-have anthology includes a foreword by esteemed mathematician David Mumford and an introduction by the editor Mircea Pitici. This book belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in where math has taken us--and where it is headed.

 

Contents

Why Math Works
1
The Unplanned Impact of Mathematics
21
Structure and Randomness in the Prime Numbers
43
The Viewable Sphere
61
Dancing Mathematics and the Mathematics of Dance
79
Can One Hear the Sound of a Theorem?
93
FlatUnfoldability and Woven Origami Tessellations
113
A Continuous Path from High School Calculus to University Analysis
129
Variables in Mathematics Education
163
History of Mathematics and History of Science Reunited?
176
A Historical Perspective
197
Was Cantor Surprised?
216
Why Is There Philosophy of Mathematics at All?
234
To Infinity and Beyond
255
Contributors
273
Credits
287

Mathematics Teachers Subtle Complex Disciplinary Knowledge
135
How Your Philosophy of Mathematics Impacts Your Teaching
149

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2013)

Mircea Pitici holds a PhD mathematics education from Cornell University, where he teaches math and writing. He has edited The Best Writing on Mathematics since 2010.

Bibliographic information