The universe in zero words
Subtitle: the story of mathematics as told through equations
By: Dana Mackenzie
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Princeton, N.J
Language: eng
Number of pages: 224
ISBN-13: 9780691152820
Subjects: Mathematics; Equations; Popular works; History
Other titles: Story of mathematics as told through equations
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 219-221) and index.
Table of contents: title: Pt. 1. Equations of antiquity; title: 1. Why we believe in arithmatic: the world's simplest equation; title: 2. Resisting a new concept: the discovery of zero; title: 3. The square of the hypotenuse: the Pythagorean theorem; title: 4. The circle game: the discovery of [pi]; title: From Zeno's paradoxes to the idea of infinity; title: 6. A matter of leverage: laws of levers; title: Pt. 2. Equations in the age of exploration; title: 7. the stammerer's secret: Cardano's formula; title: 8. Order in the heavens: Kepler's laws of planetary motion; title: 9. Writing for eternity: Fermat's last theorem; title: 10. An unexplored continent: the fundamental theorem of calculus; title: 11. Of apples, legends ... and comets: Newton's laws; title: 12. The great explorer: Euler's therems; title: Pt. 3 Equations in a promethean age; title: 13. The new algebra: Hamilton and quaternions; title: 14. Two shooting stars: group theory; title: 15. The geometry of whales and ants: non-Euclidean geometry; title: 16. In primes we trust: the prime number theorem; title: 17. The idea of spectra: Fourier series; title: 18. A god's-eye view of light: Maxwell's equations; title: Pt. 4. Equations in our own time; title: 19. The photoelectric effect: quanta and relativity; title: 20. From a bad cigar to Westminster Abbey: Dirac's formula; title: 21. The empire-builder: the Chern-Gauss-Bonnet equation; title: 22. A little bit infinite: the Continuum Hypothesis; title: 23. Theories of chaos: Lorenz equations; title: 24. Taming the tiger: the Black-Scholes equation.