Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: math & physics

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  Fermat's Last Theorem

  by Simon Singh

  The story of the solving of a puzzle that has confounded mathematicians since the 17th century. The solution of Fermat's Last Theorem is the most important mathematical development of the 20th century. In 1963, a schoolboy browsing in his local library stumbled across the world's greatest mathematical problem: Fermat's Last Theorem, a puzzle that every child can understand but which has baffled mathematicians for... (more)
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  The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next

  by Lee Smolin

  In this groundbreaking book, the renowned theoretical physicist Lee Smolin argues that physics — the basis for all other sciences — has lost its way. For more than two centuries, our understanding of the laws of nature expanded rapidly. But today, despite our best efforts, we know nothing more about these laws than we knew in the 1970s. Why is physics suddenly in trouble? And what can we do about it? One of the... (more)
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  Three Roads to Quantum Gravity

  by Lee Smolin

  From one of the world's most distinguished scientists, the first popular book to present the controversial and exciting ideas behind quantum gravity. The Holy Grail of modern physics is a theory of the universe that unites two seemingly opposing pillars of modern science: Einstein's theory of general relativity, which deals with large-scale phenomena (planets, solar systems and galaxies), and quantum theory,... (more)
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  Descartes's Secret Notebook: A True Tale of Mathematics, Mysticism, and the Quest to Understand the Universe

  by Amir D. Aczel

  René Descartes (1596–1650) is one of the towering and central figures in Western philosophy and mathematics. His apothegm “ Cogito, ergo sum ” marked the birth of the mind-body problem, while his creation of so-called Cartesian coordinates have made our physical and intellectual conquest of physical space possible. But Descartes had a mysterious and mystical side, as well. Almost certainly a member of the occult... (more)
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  Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea

  by Charles Seife

  A concise and appealing look at the strangest number in the universe and its continuing role as one of the great paradoxes of human thought The Babylonians invented it, the Greeks banned it, the Hindus worshiped it, and the Church used it to fend off heretics. Now, as Y2K fever rages, it threatens a technological apocalypse. For centuries the power of zero savored of the demonic; once harnessed, it became the... (more)
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  The Artist and the Mathematician

  The Story of Nicolas Bourbaki, the Genius Mathematician Who Never Existed

  by Amir D. Aczel

  Nicolas Bourbaki, whose mathematical publications began to appear in the late 1930s and continued to be published through most of the twentieth century, was a direct product as well as a major force behind an important revolution that took place in the early decades of the twentieth century that completely changed Western culture. Pure mathematics, the area of Bourbaki's work, seems on the surface to be an... (more)
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  Entanglement

  by Amir D. Aczel

  Will "beam me up, Scotty" become reality? Quantum mechanics suggests it may . . . and soon. Since cyberspace -- a word coined by a science fiction writer -- became reality, the lines between "science" and "science fiction" have become increasingly blurred. Now, the young field of quantum mechanics holds out the promise that some of humanity's wildest dreams may be realized. Serious scientists, working off of... (more)
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  The Mystery of the Aleph

  Mathematics, the Kabbalah, and the Search for Infinity

  by Amir D. Aczel

  A compelling narrative that blends a story of infinity with the tagic tale of a tormented and brilliant mathematician. From the end of the ninteenth century until his death, one of history's greatest mathematicians languished in an asylum, driven mad by an almost Faustian thirst for universal knowledge. THE MYSTERY OF THE ALEPH tells the story of Georg Cantor (1845-1918), a Russian born German whose work on the... (more)
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  The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple and the Complex

  by Murray Gell-Mann

  From one of the architects of the new science of simplicity and complexity comes an explanation of the connections between nature at its most basic level and natural selection, archaeology, linguistics, child development, computers, and other complex adaptive systems. Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann offers a uniquely personal and unifying vision of the relationship between the fundamental laws of physics and the... (more)