What Is Mathematics?: An Elementary Approach to Ideas and Methods

Author: Richard Courant

For more than two thousand years a familiarity with mathematics has been regarded as an indispensable part of the intellectual equipment of every cultured person. Today, unfortunately, the traditional place of mathematics in education is in grave danger. The teaching and learning of mathematics has degenerated into the realm of rote memorization, the outcome of which leads….Read More

10 Books Similar to What Is Mathematics?: An Elementary Approach to Ideas and Methods

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

Douglas Hofstadter's book is concerned directly with the nature of “maps” or links between formal systems. However, according to Hofstadter, the formal system that underlies all mental activity transcends the… Continue Reading Posted in: 1898 1972, Bibliography, Escher, M. C. (Maurits Cornelis), Machine Theory, Metamathematics, Philosophy of Logic & Language

QED: The Strange Theory of Light & Matter: Alix G. Mautner Memorial Lectures

Famous the world over for the creative brilliance of his insights into the physical world, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman also possessed an extraordinary talent for explaining difficult concepts to… Continue Reading Posted in: Addresses, Essays, Lectures, Optics for Physics, Quantum Theory, Waves & Wave Mechanics

Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics

In 1859, Bernhard Riemann, a little-known thirty-two year old mathematician, made a hypothesis while presenting a paper to the Berlin Academy titled “On the Number of Prime Numbers Less Than a… Continue Reading Posted in: Algebraic Geometry, Bibliography, Biography, Mathematics History

The Emperor’s New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds and the Laws of Physics

For decades, proponents of artificial intelligence have argued that computers will soon be doing everything that a human mind can do. Admittedly, computers now play chess at the grandmaster level,… Continue Reading Posted in: Artificial Intelligence & Semantics, Behavior And Behavior Mechanisms, Bibliography, Machine Theory, Psychology & Counseling

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

The iconoclastic American physicist Richard Feynman won a Nobel Prize for solving a sub-atomic puzzle using home-brewed methods once dismissed as ludicrous. But Feynman arguably did science an even bigger… Continue Reading Posted in: 1918 1988, Electrical Engineering, Feynman, Richard P. (Richard Phillips)

A Mathematician’s Apology

Written in 1940 as his mathematical powers were declining, G.H. Hardy's apology offers an engaging account of the thoughts of a man known for his eccentricities as well as his… Continue Reading Posted in: Bibliography, Biographies, Mathematics History, Memoirs, Philosophy

The Feynman Lectures on Physics

The revised edition of Feynman's legendary lectures includes extensive corrections and updates collated by Feynman and his colleagues. A new foreword by Kip Thorne, the current Richard Feynman Professor of… Continue Reading Posted in: Electromagnetism, Etc.), Exercises, Physics, Problems, Thermodynamics

Concepts of Modern Mathematics

Some years ago, "new math" took the country's classrooms by storm. Based on the abstract, general style of mathematical exposition favored by research mathematicians, its goal was to teach students… Continue Reading Posted in: Bibliography, Popular Works

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