The Joy Of X (a Guided Tour Of Mathematics, From One To Infinity)

By (author) Strogatz Steven
Short description/annotation:
Award-winning Steven Strogatz, one of the foremost popularisers of maths, has written a witty and fascinating account of maths'' most compelling ideas and how, so often, they are an integral part of everyday life.
Description:

Award-winning Steven Strogatz, one of the foremost popularisers of maths, has written a witty and fascinating account of maths'' most compelling ideas and how, so often, they are an integral part of everyday life.

Maths is everywhere, often where we don''t even realise. Award-winning professor Steven Strogatz acts as our guide as he takes us on a tour of numbers that - unbeknownst to the unitiated - connect pop culture, literature, art, philosophy, current affairs, business and even every day life. In The Joy of X, Strogatz explains the great ideas of maths - from negative numbers to calculus, fat tails to infinity - with clarity, wit and insight. He is the maths teacher you never had and this book is perfect for the smart and curious, the expert and the beginner.

Review quote:
The format works brilliantly because The Joy of X''s bite-size chapters can be read, chewed over and digested independently... Strogatz exhibits a journalistic eye for startling facts and memorable illustrations... the perfect maths lesson: lucid, illuminating and short
Review quote:
For those who feel insecure with symbols and formulae, the books is delightfully wordy... [it] offer[s] gloriously simple proof of Pythagoras'' Theorem
Biographical note:
Steven Strogatz is the professor of applied mathematics at Cornell University. A renowned teacher, and one of the world''s most highly-cited mathematicians, he received MIT''s E.M. Baker Award, the only institute-wide teaching prize selected solely by students. He is the author of several textbooks, as well as the bestseller Sync and The Calculus of Friendship. He lives in Ithaca, New York, with his wife Carole and their two daughters.
Promotional headline:
Award-winning Steven Strogatz, one of the foremost popularisers of maths, has written a witty and fascinating account of maths'' most compelling ideas and how, so often, they are an integral part of everyday life.