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 to satisfactory formal ability but does not lead to real understanding or to greater intellectual independence. This new edition of Richard Courant's and Herbert Robbins's classic work seeks to address this problem. Its...

Mathematik ist nicht jedermanns Sache. Wer sie liebt, fur den ist sie spannend und aufregend wie das schonste Ratsel. Fur viele Menschen aber ist Mathematik ein Buch mit sieben Siegeln, das man ehrfurchtsvoll den "Eingeweihten" uberlasst. Das Ziel von Was ist Mathematik? ist es, Brucken zu schlagen und jeden einzuladen, das Reich der Mathematik zu betreten, der neugierig genug ist, sich auf ein Abenteuer einzulassen. Die Autoren verschweigen nicht, dass Mathematik neben Begabung auch viel Fleiss und Mitdenken erfordert: man sollte sich mit ihr beschaftigen, nicht nur uber sie...

Herbert Robbins is widely recognized as one of the most creative and original mathematical statisticians of our time. The purpose of this book is to reprint, on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, some of his most outstanding research. In making selections for reprinting we have tried to keep in mind three potential audiences: (1) the historian who would like to know Robbins' seminal role in stimulating a substantial proportion of current research in mathematical statistics; (2) the novice who would like a readable, conceptu- ally oriented introduction to these subjects; and (3) the...