How to make lots of money, keep yourself safe, and even save the world-all by using a little simple mathForget the dull, boring math you learned in school. This book shows you the powerful things math can do for you, with applications no teacher ever taught you in algebra class. How can you make money off credit card companies? Will driving a hybrid save you money in the long run? How do you know when he or she is "the one"?From financial decisions to your education, job, h...

"Explores the application of math to problem solving in the everyday. . . . [W]ill appeal to both casual and serious fans of math or physics." — Publishers WeeklyIn How Math Explains the World, mathematician Stein reveals how seemingly arcane mathematical investigations and discoveries have led to bigger, more world-shaking insights into the nature of our world. In the four main sections of the book, Stein tells the stories of the mathematical thi...

This book tells the stories of some of the great quests of mathematics, such as the centuries-long pursuit for the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. These quests are searches for difficult-to-discover universal truths, pursued with passion not only by mathematicians and scientists, but by kings, emperors and even Jean-Luc Picard, the captain of Star Trek's Starship Enterprise. Some of their exploits are adventures as fascinating as any historical or current-day drama. The truths they have di...

If we were to judge humanity’s greatest accomplishments, science is almost certainly at the top of the list. The Milestones of Science is a collection of the most important and impressive breakthroughs in the history of science – as well as the scientists behind him – from the ancient world to what the future of science may hold.Comprised of riveting and readable stories from along the path of scientific discovery in the fields of Astronomy, The Earth, Matter, Forces and Energy, Ch...

CAN YOU EVER BE SURE YOU'RE MAKING THE RIGHT DECISION?Should you stay in a comfy job with little chance of advancement-or take a riskier one in which you could make lots of money but also wind up on the street?Should you listen to a doctor who advises surgery-or trust another who tells you to wait and see if your condition improves?Should you remain in a cozy relationship without much spark-or cut your losses and search for your soul mate?Is...

A collection of detective stories using math to solve crimesMove over, Sherlock and Watson—the detective duo to be reckoned with. In the entertaining short-story collection L.A. Math, freelance investigator Freddy Carmichael and his sidekick, Pete Lennox, show how math smarts can crack even the most perplexing cases. Freddy meets colorful personalities throughout Los Angeles and encounters mysterious circumstances from embezzlement and robbery to murder. I...

Our fascination with numbers begins when we are children and continues throughout our lives. We start counting our fingers and toes and end up balancing checkbooks and calculating risk. So powerful is the appeal of numbers that many people ascribe to them a mystical significance. Other numbers go beyond the supernatural, working to explain our universe and how it behaves.Cosmic Numbers, mathematics professor James D. Stein traces the discovery, evolution, and interrelationships of ...

The Santa's Library: 450+ Christmas Novels, Tales, Carols & Legends' offers a remarkable compilation of festive literature that spans cultures, epochs, and styles, creating an immersive tapestry of Yuletide celebration. From the enchanting fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen to the profound narratives by Tolstoy, and the poetic carols of Longfellow, this anthology encapsulates the myriad ways Christmas has been celebrated in literature. The collection, versatile in its narrative forms—b...

Can we correctly predict the flip of a fair coin more than half the time — or the decay of a single radioactive atom? Our intuition, based on a lifetime of experience, tells us that we cannot, as these are classic examples of what are known to be 50-50 guesses.But mathematics is filled with counterintuitive results — and this book discusses some surprising and entertaining examples. It is possible to devise experiments in which a flipped coin lands heads completely at random half the time,...

Seduction is not just an end result, but a process — and in mathematics, both the end results and the process by which those end results are achieved are often charming and elegant.This helps to explain why so many people — not just those for whom math plays a key role in their day-to-day lives — have found mathematics so seductive. Math is unique among all subjects in that it contains end results of amazing insight and power, and lines of reasoning that are clever, charming, and e...

James Baldwin was beginning to be recognized as the most brilliant black writer of his generation when his first book of essays, Notes of a Native Son,established his reputation in 1955. No one was more pleased by the book’s reception than Baldwin’s high school friend Sol Stein. A rising New York editor, novelist, and playwright, Stein had suggested that Baldwin do the book and coaxed his old friend through the long and sometimes agonizing process of putting the volume together an...

The Big Book of Christmas Novels, Stories, Myths & Carols represents a vast tapestry of the Christmas season as portrayed by an extraordinary confluence of authors spanning different continents and centuries. This anthology compiles works ranging from heartwarming tales and profound poems to revelatory myths and spirited carols, each enriching the festive lore with diverse literary styles and perspectives. The collection traverses the scope from Dickens' Victorian England to Andersen's fai...