—The interest earned on a bank account, the arrangement of seeds
in a sunflower, and the shape of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis are all
intimately connected with the mysterious number e. In this
informal and engaging history, Eli Maor portrays the curious characters
and the elegant mathematics that lie behind the number. Designed for a
reader with only a modest background in mathematics, this biography of
e brings out that number's central importance in mathematics and
illuminates a golden era in the age of science.
The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdos and the
Search for Mathematical Truth, Paul Hoffman—Paul Erdos, the most prolific
and eccentric mathematician of our time, forsook all creature comforts -
including a home - to pursue his lifelong study of numbers. He was a man
who possessed unimaginable powers of thought yet was unable to manage
some of the simplest daily tasks. For more than six decades, Erdos lived
out of two tattered suitcases, crisscrossing four continents at a
frenzied pace, chasing mathematical problems and fresh talent. Erdos saw
mathematics as a search for lasting beauty and ultimate truth. It was a
search Erdos never abandoned, even as his life was torn asunder by some
of the major political dramas of our time. In this biography, Hoffman
uses Erdos's life and work to introduce readers to a cast of remarkable
geniuses, from Archimedes to Stanislaw Ulam, one of the chief minds
behind the Los Alamos nuclear project. He draws on years of interviews
with Ronald Graham and Fan Chung, Erdos's chief American caretakers and
devoted collaborators. With an eye for the hilarious anecdote, Hoffman
explains mathematical problems from Fermat's Last Theorem to the more
frivolous "Monty Hall dilemma." What emerges is an intimate look at the
world of mathematics and an indelible portrait of Erdos, a charming and
impish philosopher-scientist whose accomplishments continue to enrich
and inform our world.
Advanced Topics in Math:
How to Lie with Statistics,
Darrell Huff
—A 1954
classic that exposes how advertisers, government and the media mislead their audiences
through the misuse of statistics. Huff explains how the reader can see through the smoke
and mirrors to get to the real meaning—if any—of what is presented.
Integrated Math III:
The Man Who Counted: Collection of Mathematical Adventures,
Malba Tahan
— Here's a delightful little book that combines the joys of
mathematical recreation with some fine storytelling. It follows the
Arabian adventures of a man with remarkable mathematical skills, which
he uses to settle conflict and give wise advice. The tales of his
travels involve the solving of mathematical puzzles and sharing insights
from the minds of some of history's great mathematicians. In reading it,
you can almost smell the spices and feel the desert wind. You just don't
find this kind of atmosphere in books about mathematics.
The Curious
Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark
Haddon— Narrated by a 15-year-old autistic savant obsessed with
Sherlock Holmes, this dazzling novel weaves together an old-fashioned
mystery, a contemporary coming-of-age story, and a fascinating excursion
into a mind incapable of processing emotions.
Integrated Math II:
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
, Edwin Abbott
—A.
Square is born into a flat place limited to two dimensions and peopled by a hierarchy of
geometrical forms. He visits worlds of one dimension and no dimension, but when he speaks
openly of worlds with three and four dimension, tragedy strikes.
Integrated Math I:
October Sky: A Memoir,
(originally published as Rocket Boys)
Homer Hickam—It was 1957, the year Sputnik raced across the Appalachian sky,
and the small town of Coalwood, West Virginia, was slowly dying.Faced with an uncertain future, Homer Hickam nurtured a dream: to
send rockets into outer space. The introspective son of the mine’s
superintendent and a mother determined to get him out of Coalwood
forever, Homer fell in with a group of misfits who learned not only how
to turn scraps of metal into sophisticated rockets but how to sustain
their hope in a town that swallowed its men alive.As the boys began to light up the tarry skies with their flaming
projectiles and dreams of glory, Coalwood, and the Hickams, would never
be the same.
The Da Vinci
Code, Dan Brown—The curator of the Louvre is found murdered, his body surrounded
by bizarre ciphers. When detective Robert Langdon and French
cryptologist Sophie Neveu attempt to decipher the clues, they soon
realize the riddles are connected to Da Vinci's works--and may be linked
to a mystery that stretches deep into the history of the Catholic
Church.
Intro to Algebra/Geometry:
The Joy of Mathematics,
Theoni Pappas—Mathematics
is everywhere—in soap bubbles, electricity, da Vinci’s masterpieces, even in an
ocean wave. This collection of clearly illustrated mathematical ideas, concepts, puzzles,
and games shows where they turn up in the "real" world.
The Da Vinci
Code, Dan Brown—The curator of the Louvre is found murdered, his body surrounded
by bizarre ciphers. When detective Robert Langdon and French
cryptologist Sophie Neveu attempt to decipher the clues, they soon
realize the riddles are connected to Da Vinci's works--and may be linked
to a mystery that stretches deep into the history of the Catholic
Church.