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Mathematical Mysteries: The Beauty and Magic of Numbers
Why seemingly unrelated mathematical truths are connected in simple and beautiful equations continues to stump even mathematicians. This recreational math book takes the reader on a fantastic voyage into the world of natural numbers. From the earliest discoveries of the ancient Greeks to various fundamental characteristics of the natural number sequence, Clawson explains fascinating mathematical mysteries in clear and easy prose. He delves into the heart of number theory to see and understand the exquisite relationships among natural numbers, and ends by exploring the ultimate mystery of the Riemann hypothesis, which says that through a point in a plane, no line can be drawn parallel to a given line.While a professional mathematician's treatment of number theory involves the most sophisticated analytical tools, its basic ideas are surprisingly easy to comprehend. By concentrating on the meaning behind various equations and proofs and avoiding technical refinements, Mathematical Mysteries lets the common reader catch a glimpse of this wonderful and exotic world.
328 pages, Paperback
First published August 21, 1996
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789 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
September 5, 2011
An entrancing book, one of the few I've read 4 times. Would make an excellent replacement for most of the 9th through 12th grade high school mathematics texts, if only because unlike those currently in use it might encourage an interest in the subject prompting further inquiry, reading and discovery.
May 13, 2025
Read this before, enjoyed it and I am back again.
Also here are things I am trying to learn and retain. My measure of knowing it is to be able to take a walk and be able to explain to myself. I find these things elusive.
1. what exactly are Logarithms...
Also here are things I am trying to learn and retain. My measure of knowing it is to be able to take a walk and be able to explain to myself. I find these things elusive.
1. what exactly are Logarithms...
October 28, 2007
This book comes closest to the excitement I feel for mathematics. If you are even mildly interested in mathematics and sciences, you will enjoy reading this. It presents the the interconnections between differing theories of mathematics that you learned in high school. If they thought these things in school, there would be more people who enjoy learning math and sciences. My favorite section of the book is where the writer starts with the golden ratio theorized by the ancient Greeks and shows how it is related to Fibonacci sequence, Pi, and e...
If you are excited by this sort of thing...
If you are excited by this sort of thing...
October 23, 2014
Absolutely fascinating. The first two chapters are rather basic but interesting enough, but then it gets into the meaty stuff. These should be fairly understandable to anyone who is comfortable with advanced school mathematics, the exceptions being the discussion of public-key encryption and of Godel's Incompleteness theorem, which I found needed more than one read. Some of the work is now out of date so it is worth referring to Wiki for the latest status of certain problems.
My favourite part was the discussion of Ramanujan's work, with many incredible results. One of these is an expression for the fourth power of Pi in terms of the fourth power of the prime numbers, which I find absolutely incredible. Why should there be any connection between the area of a circle and prime numbers? Nobody knows -absolute magic. Surprisingly there is no mention of Euler's expression giving PI^2 / 6 in terms of the squares of the primes: (4/3).(9/8).(25/24).(49/48)...
My favourite part was the discussion of Ramanujan's work, with many incredible results. One of these is an expression for the fourth power of Pi in terms of the fourth power of the prime numbers, which I find absolutely incredible. Why should there be any connection between the area of a circle and prime numbers? Nobody knows -absolute magic. Surprisingly there is no mention of Euler's expression giving PI^2 / 6 in terms of the squares of the primes: (4/3).(9/8).(25/24).(49/48)...
September 12, 2020
A fantastic book, but, yeah, it's FULL of math that is well above high school level. Good thing I've taken graduate-level courses in mathematics, and taught HS math for years. Even then, I found it quite challenging at times, but very, very interesting. I read this in bits and pieces over the past half year or so. The "starting date" is therefore approximate.
July 5, 2023
In order to appreciate this book, the reader must have a good understanding of complex math terms and concepts. I was not expecting the writing to be so complicated. My math knowledge is not at the l3vel to appreciate this text in the intended spirit.
xx-dnf-skim-reference
February 24, 2022Engaging enough until it got to 'e' and then it became more work than fun for me. Oh how I miss my young and agile mind.
May 1, 2016
Picked up this book from my parent's shelf while I recovered from a collar bone surgery. It was a nice mental distraction with deep mathematical questionings once in a while that even turned out to be philosophical questionings of the realm of the universe. There are lots of math topics and brief biographies that made me go down the rabbit hole once in a while to dig deeper on internet on some of the things I found very interesting from the book and which it briefly described. The narrative of the book was well done from beginning to end in a successful attempt to link all topics and present them in an interesting way without boring the reader. Even the author knows some things of what he is writing is completely hard to grasp, but the effort he does, to show us the magic and beauty behind it, is well executed.
If you don't like numbers, you probably would not be even reading reviews from this book. If you are curious and still do not like numbers, you may either end reinforcing your hate for numbers but admitting that there seems to be something elegant about numbers, or be fascinated now by the mystery construction of the numbers and find it amazing how there are still unsolved problems in math. If you like numbers, read the book and probably you may end solving or proving some of the unsolved problems.
The only problem is that the latest edition is from 1999 and is missing some of the latest advances in some of the topics it mentions. For example the largest prime number was recently discovered on January 2016 with slightly more than 22 million digits!
If you don't like numbers, you probably would not be even reading reviews from this book. If you are curious and still do not like numbers, you may either end reinforcing your hate for numbers but admitting that there seems to be something elegant about numbers, or be fascinated now by the mystery construction of the numbers and find it amazing how there are still unsolved problems in math. If you like numbers, read the book and probably you may end solving or proving some of the unsolved problems.
The only problem is that the latest edition is from 1999 and is missing some of the latest advances in some of the topics it mentions. For example the largest prime number was recently discovered on January 2016 with slightly more than 22 million digits!
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December 7, 2014 Calving Clawson's purpose for writing this book is enlighten your mind with amazing math. You can tell he has done a lot of research because he says he has. Clawson spoke of how he went to many sources to get information.
The theme of this book is that math is important. Mathematics is everywhere doing everything. You reading this report uses math. Previous reviews recommend this book for people in grades 9-12, I think that anyone that can do simple math with be able to understand most of this book.
This book is written in a exposition style. He explains and analyzes math to bring clarity to ideas and principals of math. You can start from basic knowledge in math, then he starts to explain more and by the end you have a very vast knowledge of math. By the end of the book it seems as though you are learning college level math. I had a harder time understanding some of that last math topics.
I truly like this book. I love math so I like this book. If you like math I recommend this book to you. The part that I really like about this book is that it really expands your knowledge. What do I dislike? I don't like that it took so long to read such an amazing book. I feel that this book should be handed out with the math book in more advanced classes so you learn more of the theories behind what you do. I would change nothing about this book. This is also like no other book I have read. I recommend this book to anyone who likes math.
The theme of this book is that math is important. Mathematics is everywhere doing everything. You reading this report uses math. Previous reviews recommend this book for people in grades 9-12, I think that anyone that can do simple math with be able to understand most of this book.
This book is written in a exposition style. He explains and analyzes math to bring clarity to ideas and principals of math. You can start from basic knowledge in math, then he starts to explain more and by the end you have a very vast knowledge of math. By the end of the book it seems as though you are learning college level math. I had a harder time understanding some of that last math topics.
I truly like this book. I love math so I like this book. If you like math I recommend this book to you. The part that I really like about this book is that it really expands your knowledge. What do I dislike? I don't like that it took so long to read such an amazing book. I feel that this book should be handed out with the math book in more advanced classes so you learn more of the theories behind what you do. I would change nothing about this book. This is also like no other book I have read. I recommend this book to anyone who likes math.
March 30, 2011
I have decided that I really enjoy Math theory and its ideas. I found this to be a facinating book. Some of the stuff was over my head and I had to re-read it to understand it, but I learned a lot about prime numbers, mathematicians, and the golden mean, etc.
January 14, 2010
"A breathtaking journey into equations, trascendental numbers, primes, sequences and series, and conjuctures."
January 1, 2015
This book wavered from five stars to three, so I'm settling on four. Good books about math and number theory are so hard to find - this is a pretty good one!
January 21, 2013
i loved reading this book. great introduction to math's great thinkers. mysterious and thought provoking.
December 9, 2015
A remarkable book on number theory at secondary school level with a chapter dedicated to the poorly known indian mathematical genius Ramanujan
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews