Pi: A Biography of the World's Most Mysterious Number

Name: Pi: A Biography of the World's Most Mysterious Number
SKU: 9781633889088
Price: 21.40 EUR
Availability: InStock

AUTHORS

Posamentier Alfred Lehmann Ingmar

Price

€21.40

€23.80 -10%

Upon request

Dispatched within 15 - 25 days.

Add to wishlist

Description
Information
Author Information

We all learned that the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter is called pi and that the value of this algebraic symbol is roughly 3.14. What we weren't told, though, is that behind this seemingly mundane fact is a world of mystery, which has fascinated mathematicians from ancient times to the present. Simply put, pi is weird. Mathematicians call it a "transcendental number" because its value cannot be calculated by any combination of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and square root extraction. In this delightful layperson's introduction to one of math's most interesting phenomena, Drs. Posamentier and Lehmann review pi's history from prebiblical times to the 21st century, the many amusing and mind-boggling ways of estimating pi over the centuries, quirky examples of obsessing about pi (including an attempt to legislate its exact value), and useful applications of pi in everyday life, including statistics.This enlightening and stimulating approach to mathematics will entertain lay readers while improving their mathematical literacy.

Authors: Posamentier Alfred, Lehmann Ingmar

Publisher: PROMETHEUS BOOKS

Pages: 324

ISBN: 9781633889088

Cover: Paperback

Edition Number: 1

Release Year: 2023

Alfred S. Posamentier has published over sixty books in the area of mathematics and mathematics education, including most recently Math Makers (with Christian Spreitzer). Currently, he is Distinguished Lecturer at New York City College of Technology of the City University of New York. After having been on the faculty of the City College of the City University of New York for forty years, where he was professor of mathematics education and dean of the School of Education, he subsequently held the same positions at Mercy College, New York, for five years. He then served as executive director for internationalization and sponsored programs at Long Island University, New York.

Ingmar Lehmann is retired from the mathematics faculty at Humboldt University in Berlin. For many years, he led the Berlin Mathematics Student Society for gifted secondary school students, an organization with which he is still closely engaged today.

He is the author of numerous mathematics texts in Germany and the coauthor with Alfred S. Posamentier of some other books, including The Secrets of Triangles, The Glorious Golden Ratio, Magnificent Mistakes in Mathematics, and The Fabulous Fibonacci Numbers.