Princeton Science Library

Presents the story of the formula - zero equals e[pi] i+1 long regarded as the gold standard for mathematical beauty. This book shows why it still lies at the heart of complex number theory. It discusses many sophisticated applications of complex numbers in pure and applied mathematics, and to electronic technology.

David S. Richeson is professor of mathematics at Dickinson College. How a simple equation reshaped mathematics Leonhard Euler's polyhedron formula describes the structure of many objects-from soccer balls and gemstones to Buckminster Fuller's buildings and giant all-carbon molecules. Yet Euler's theorem is so simple it can be explained to a child. From ancient Greek geometry to today's cutting-edge research, Euler's Gem celebrates the discovery...

Edwin Abbott Abbott (1838-1926), the author of more than fifty books on classics, theology, history, and Shakespeare, was headmaster of the City of London School and one of the leading educators of his time. Thomas Banchoff is professor emeritus of mathematics at Brown University and author of Beyond the Third Dimension. In 1884, Edwin Abbott Abbott wrote a mathematical adventure set in a two-dimensional plane world, populated by a hierarchical...

"Among the many constants that appear in mathematics, [pi], e, and i are the most familiar. Following closely behind is [gamma] or gamma, a constant that arises in many mathematical areas yet remains profoundly mysterious. Introduced by the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler (1707-1783), who figures prominently in this book, gamma is defined as the limit of the sum of 1 + 1/2 + 1/3 + ... up to 1/n , minus the natural logarithm of n -- and the numerical...

"Winner of the 2003 Book Award in Science, Phi Beta Kappa" Andrew H. Knoll is the Fisher Professor of Natural History at Harvard University and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. A paleontologist by training, he has spent more than two decades working to integrate geological and biological perspectives on early life. Australopithecines, dinosaurs, trilobites--such fossils conjure up images of lost worlds filled with vanished organisms....

"The air we breathe is twenty-one percent oxygen, an amount higher than on any other known world. While we may take our air for granted, Earth was not always an oxygenated planet. How did it become this way? Oxygen is the most current account of the history of atmospheric oxygen on Earth."--Jacket.

Henry Petroski (1942–2023) was the Aleksandar S. Vesic Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering at Duke University. His many books include To Engineer Is Human, The Evolution of Useful Things, The Pencil, and The Toothpick. From the acclaimed author and engineer, an engaging and lively account of the surprising secret of great design Design pervades our lives. Everything from drafting a PowerPoint presentation to planning a state-of-the-art...

William Dunham is a Research Associate in Mathematics at Bryn Mawr College. He is the author of Journey Through Genius: The Great Theorems of Mathematics, The Mathematical Universe, and Euler: The Master of Us All, and is a co-editor (along with Jerry Alexanderson and Don Albers) of The G.H. Hardy Reader. He received the Mathematical Association of America's George Polya, Trevor Evans, and Lester R. Ford awards, as well as its Beckenbach Prize for...

François Jacob (1920–2013) was awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1965 and was one of the world's leading molecular biologists. "The most remarkable history of biology that has ever been written."-Michel Foucault Nobel Prize–winning scientist François Jacob's The Logic of Life is a landmark book in the history of biology and science. Focusing on heredity, which Jacob considers the fundamental feature of living things, he shows how, since...

Everybody knows that mathematics is indispensable to physics--imagine where we'd be today if Einstein and Newton didn't have the math to back up their ideas. But how many people realize that physics can be used to produce many astonishing and strikingly elegant solutions in mathematics? Mark Levi shows how in this delightful book, treating readers to a host of entertaining problems and mind-bending puzzlers that will amuse and inspire their inner...