Kategoria BISAC: Mathematics >> Recreations & Games

Across the Board is the definitive work on chessboard problems. It is not simply about chess but the chessboard itself--that simple grid of squares so common to games around the world. And, more importantly, the fascinating mathematics behind it. From the Knight's Tour Problem and Queens Domination to their many variations, John Watkins surveys all the well-known problems in this surprisingly fertile area of recreational mathematics. Can a knight follow a path that covers every square once, ending on the starting square? How many queens are needed so that every square is...

We all played tag when we were kids. What most of us don't realize is that this simple chase game is in fact an application of pursuit theory, and that the same principles of games like tag, dodgeball, and hide-and-seek are also at play in military strategy, high-seas chases by the Coast Guard, and even romantic pursuits. In Chases and Escapes, Paul Nahin gives us the first complete history of this fascinating area of mathematics, from its classical analytical beginnings to the present day.

Drawing on game theory, geometry, linear algebra, target-tracking algorithms, and...

Although we seldom think of it, our lives are played out in a world of numbers. Such common activities as throwing baseballs, skipping rope, growing flowers, playing football, measuring savings accounts, and many others are inherently mathematical. So are more speculative problems that are simply fun to ponder in themselves--such as the best way to score Olympic events.

Here Robert Banks presents a wide range of musings, both practical and entertaining, that have intrigued him and others: How tall can one grow? Why do we get stuck in traffic? Which football player would have a...

Some probability problems are so difficult that they stump the smartest mathematicians. But even the hardest of these problems can often be solved with a computer and a Monte Carlo simulation, in which a random-number generator simulates a physical process, such as a million rolls of a pair of dice. This is what Digital Dice is all about: how to get numerical answers to difficult probability problems without having to solve complicated mathematical equations.

Popular-math writer Paul Nahin challenges readers to solve twenty-one difficult but fun problems, from...

Stanford mathematician and NPR Math Guy Keith Devlin explains why, fun aside, video games are the ideal medium to teach middle-school math. Aimed primarily at teachers and education researchers, but also of interest to game developers who want to produce videogames for mathematics education, Mathematics Education for a New Era: Video Games as a Medium for Learning describes exactly what is involved in designing and producing successful math educational videogames that foster the innovative mathematical thinking skills necessary for success in a global economy.

Read...

This engaging book presents the essential mathematics needed to describe, simulate, and render a 3D world. Reflecting both academic and in-the-trenches practical experience, the authors teach you how to describe objects and their positions, orientations, and trajectories in 3D using mathematics. The text provides an introduction to mathematics for game designers, including the fundamentals of coordinate spaces, vectors, and matrices. It also covers orientation in three dimensions, calculus and dynamics, graphics, and parametric curves.

In 2008, November 23-28, the workshop of "Classical Problems on Planar Polynomial Vector Fields " was held in the Banff International Research Station, Canada. Called "classical problems," it was concerned with the following:

(1) Problems on integrability of planar polynomial vector fields.

(2) The problem of the center stated by Poincare for real polynomial differential systems, which asks us to recognize when a planar vector field defined by polynomials of degree at most n possesses a singularity which is a center.

(3) Global geometry of specific classes of planar...

Calculus. For some of us, the word conjures up memories of ten-pound textbooks and visions of tedious abstract equations. And yet, in reality, calculus is fun, accessible, and surrounds us everywhere we go. In Everyday Calculus, Oscar Fernandez shows us how to see the math in our coffee, on the highway, and even in the night sky.

Fernandez uses our everyday experiences to skillfully reveal the hidden calculus behind a typical day's events. He guides us through how math naturally emerges from simple observations--how hot coffee cools down, for example--and in discussions of...

This third book in the series helps you engage students in grades 6-8 in discussions of mathematical ideas and deepen their conceptual understanding. It also helps you develop students' fluency with number systems; ratio and proportional relationships;...

Art and math intertwine in exciting and complex new ways in Geometric Origami Kit. World renowned origami artists Michael G. LaFosse and Richard L. Alexander bring you this paper craft kit where folding a piece of paper creates a new and wondrous origami object. In Geometric Origami, the initial folds are easily created, but once the basic building blocks are ready, the intricate combining of these pieces form new geometric origami sculptures that interlock into...

The heart of mathematics is its elegance; the way it all fits together. Unfortunately, its beauty often eludes the vast majority of people who are intimidated by fear of the difficulty of numbers. Mathematical Elegance remedies this. Using hundreds of examples, the author presents a view of the mathematical landscape that is both accessible and fascinating.

At a time of concern that American youth are bored by math, there is renewed interest in improving math skills. Mathematical Elegance stimulates students, along with those already experienced in the discipline,...

Children and adults love pattern. Fascination with Escher and with the Alhambra and other patterns lead to intrigue into making them, understanding them and inventing them. Now in Tarquin's long tradition of pattern books that link art and mathematics, comes a new title.
Lattice Labyrinth Tessellations, an exciting, fertile, yet almost unexplored Flatland situated in the gulf between Art and Mathematics.The astonishing and elegant designs revealed in this very short and almost elementary book are simple to make and beautiful to contemplate, yet are unmentioned in the textbooks and...

These three-dimensional models are created from a number of small pieces of paper that are easily folded and then cleverly fit together to form a spectacular shape. They range from paper polyhedra to bristling buckyballs that are reminiscent of sea urchins--to ornate flower-like spheres.

Each piece of paper is held by the tension of the other papers--demonstrating the remarkable hidden properties of paper, which is at the same time flexible but also strong

Author Byriah Loper has been creating modular origami sculptures...