"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...

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

"An essential, inspiring guide to the challenges of our time" from the author of the UK bestseller The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten (Sarah Bakewell, New York Times– bestselling author).By now, it should be clear: in the face of disinformation and disaster, we cannot hot take, life hack, or meme our way to a better future. But how should we respond instead? In How to Think Lik...

Noam Chomsky and linguist Andrea Moro explore language, the history of science, Big Data and AI, and the mysteries of the human brain.Influential linguist Noam Chomsky and his longtime colleague Andrea Moro have a wide-ranging conversation, touching on such topics as language and linguistics, the history of science, and the relation between language and the brain. Chomsky discusses today’s misplaced euphoria about artificial intelligence (Chomsky sees “lots of hype...

The acclaimed social psychologist and New York Times–bestselling author of The Art of Loving discusses the nature of evil and humanity's capacity for it.Originally published in 1964, The Heart of Man was influenced by turbulent times. Average Americans were suffering from different forms of evil, including a rise in juvenile delinquency. On a grander scale, the threat of nuclear war loomed over the nation, and President John F. Kennedy had...

If you want to live a life of purpose, build good habits and achieve your goals, there is one skill that is more important than anything else: Self-Discipline.Self-discipline is not about punishment, it’s about self-respect. It is not about being inflexible, but about living your best life. It is the superpower of focus in a world of distractions — allowing you to overcome procrastination, excuses, bad habits, low motivation, failures, and self-doubt. With it, you can stay on track...