First there was Edwin A. Abbott's remarkable Flatland, published in 1884, and one of the all-time classics of popular mathematics. Now, from mathematician and accomplished science writer Ian Stewart, comes what Nature calls "a superb sequel." Through larger-than-life characters and an inspired story line, Flatterland explores our present understanding of the shape and origins of the universe, the nature of space, time, and matter, as well as modern geometries and their applications. The journey begins when our heroine, Victoria Line, comes upon her great-great-grandfather A. Square's diary,...

Biologists have long dismissed mathematics as being unable to meaningfully contribute to our understanding of living beings. Within the past ten years, however, mathematicians have proven that they hold the key to unlocking the mysteries of our world--and ourselves.

In The Mathematics of Life, Ian Stewart provides a fascinating overview of the vital but little-recognized role mathematics has played in pulling back the curtain on the hidden complexities of the natural world--and how its contribution will be even more vital in the years ahead. In his characteristically clear and...

Most people are familiar with history's great equations: Newton's Law of Gravity, for instance, or Einstein's theory of relativity. But the way these mathematical breakthroughs have contributed to human progress is seldom appreciated. In In Pursuit of the Unknown, celebrated mathematician Ian Stewart untangles the roots of our most important mathematical statements to show that equations have long been a driving force behind nearly every aspect of our lives. Using seventeen of our most crucial equations--including the Wave Equation that allowed engineers to measure a building's...

Welcome to Ian Stewart's strange and magical world of mathematics Math Hysteria contains twenty quirky tales of mathematical exploration by one of the world's most popular writers on mathematics. Ian Stewart presents us with a wealth of magical puzzles, each one spun around an amazing tale, including "Counting the Cattle of the Sun," "The Great Drain Robbery," and "Preposterous Piratical Predicaments." Fully illustrated with explanatory diagrams, each tale is told with engaging wit, sure to amuse everyone with an interest in puzzles and mathematics. Along the way, we also meet many curious...

Welcome back to Ian Stewart's magical world of mathematics Here are twenty more curious puzzles and fantastical mathematical stories from one of the world's most popular and accessible writers on mathematics. This is a strange world of never-ending chess games, empires on the moon, furious fireflies, and, of course, disputes over how best to cut a cake. Each chapter--with titles such as, "How to Play Poker By Post" and "Repealing the Law of Averages"--presents a fascinating mathematical puzzle that is challenging, fun, and introduces the reader to a significant mathematical problem in an...

It is only in recent times that infinite-dimensional Lie algebras have been the subject of other than sporadic study, with perhaps two exceptions: Cartan's simple algebras of infinite type, and free algebras. However, the last decade has seen a considerable increase of interest in the subject, along two fronts: the topological and the algebraic. The former, which deals largely with algebras of operators on linear spaces, or on manifolds modelled on linear spaces, has been dealt with elsewhere*). The latter, which is the subject of the present volume, exploits the surprising depth of analogy...

In recent years, there has been an explosion of interest in network-based modeling in many branches of science. This book synthesizes some of the common features of many such models, providing a general framework analogous to the modern theory of nonlinear dynamical systems. How networks lead to behavior not typical in a general dynamical system and how the architecture and symmetry of the network influence this behavior are the book's main themes. Dynamics and Bifurcation in Networks: Theory and Applications of Coupled Differential Equations is the first book to describe the formalism for...