Mathematical Conversations: Selections from The Mathematical Intelligencer
"Popular mathematical expositions aim to render exciting, deep mathematics comprehensible to a wide audience (hard!). Since even professional mathematicians can expect to penetrate the technicalities of only a small fraction of mathematical breakthroughs, publications such as The Mathematical Intelligencer, the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, Sugaku, and LÉnseignement Mathmatique (Mathematique) address themselves to at least a wide audience of mathematicians. The Mathematical Intelligencer publishes stylish, well-illustrated articles, rich in ideas and usually short on proofs. The balance of topics reflects the broad spectrum of mathematical activity, and especially, great recent achievements (the Mordell conjecture, the Bieberbach conjecture, the Jones polynomial). Many, but not all articles fall within the reach of the advanced undergraduate mathematics major. For example, every student of advanced calculus should read Felipe Acker's essay on Stokes's theorem and the mean value theorem. This book makes a nice addition to any undergraduate mathematics collection that does not already sport back issues of The Mathematical Intelligencer. Upper-division undergraduates and up."D.V. Feldman, University of New Hampshire inCHOICE Reviews, June 2001