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The Best Writing on Mathematics 2020
The year's finest mathematical writing from around the world
This annual anthology brings together the year’s finest mathematics writing from around the world. Featuring promising new voices alongside some of the foremost names in the field, The Best Writing on Mathematics 2020 makes available to a wide audience many articles not easily found anywhere else―and you don’t need to be a mathematician to enjoy them. These writings offer surprising insights into the nature, meaning, and practice of mathematics today. They delve into the history, philosophy, teaching, and everyday aspects of math, and take readers behind the scenes of today’s hottest mathematical debates.
Here, Steven Strogatz reveals how calculus drives advances in virology, Paul Thagard argues that the power of mathematics stems from its combination of realistic and fictional qualities, and Erica Klarreich describes how Hao Huang used the combinatorics of cube nodes to solve a longstanding problem in computer science. In other essays, John Baez tells how he discovered the irresistible attractions of algebraic geometry, Mark Colyvan compares the radically different explanatory practices of mathematics and science, and Boris Odehnal reviews some surprising properties of multidimensional geometries. And there’s much, much more.
In addition to presenting the year’s most memorable writings on mathematics, this must-have anthology includes a bibliography of other notable writings and an introduction by the editor.
This book belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in where math has taken us―and where it is headed.
This annual anthology brings together the year’s finest mathematics writing from around the world. Featuring promising new voices alongside some of the foremost names in the field, The Best Writing on Mathematics 2020 makes available to a wide audience many articles not easily found anywhere else―and you don’t need to be a mathematician to enjoy them. These writings offer surprising insights into the nature, meaning, and practice of mathematics today. They delve into the history, philosophy, teaching, and everyday aspects of math, and take readers behind the scenes of today’s hottest mathematical debates.
Here, Steven Strogatz reveals how calculus drives advances in virology, Paul Thagard argues that the power of mathematics stems from its combination of realistic and fictional qualities, and Erica Klarreich describes how Hao Huang used the combinatorics of cube nodes to solve a longstanding problem in computer science. In other essays, John Baez tells how he discovered the irresistible attractions of algebraic geometry, Mark Colyvan compares the radically different explanatory practices of mathematics and science, and Boris Odehnal reviews some surprising properties of multidimensional geometries. And there’s much, much more.
In addition to presenting the year’s most memorable writings on mathematics, this must-have anthology includes a bibliography of other notable writings and an introduction by the editor.
This book belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in where math has taken us―and where it is headed.
264 pages, Hardcover
Published November 24, 2020
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34 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 8, 2026
Der Band des Jahres 2020 liefert weitere Texte, die sich für eine kurze Würdigung anbieten.. Eine ausführlichere Einführung zum Ausgangspunkt dieser Reihe findet sich hier:
The Best Writing on Mathematics 2010
Jahrgang 2020 - Erklärungskraft – Mathematik als Spiegel der Realität: Hervorstechende Publikationen
Der Fokus dieses Bandes liegt auf der Frage, wie Mathematik die Welt nicht nur beschreibt, sondern fundamentale Erklärungen für physikalische und biologische Phänomene liefert.
* Ben Orlin: „1994, the Year Calculus Was Born“. Ein Auszug aus seinem Buch, der die historische und inhaltliche Bedeutung der Infinitesimalrechnung beleuchtet.
* Paul Thagard: „Mathematical Knowledge and Reality“. Thagard setzt sich mit der Frage auseinander, ob mathematische Eigenschaften und Relationen reale Bestandteile der Welt sind.
* Mark Colyvan: „The Ins and Outs of Mathematical Explanation“. Ein Beitrag zur Philosophie der Mathematik, der untersucht, was eine "gute" mathematische Erklärung eigentlich auszeichnet. Colyvan untersucht die Rolle der Mathematik als Erklärungsmodell in der Wissenschaft, beispielhaft am „Honeycomb Theorem“ (Bienenwaben-Satz).
* Donald Teets – „Gauss’s Computation of the Easter Date“: Eine detaillierte Aufarbeitung, wie der "Fürst der Mathematiker", Carl Friedrich Gauß, einen Algorithmus entwickelte, um das Datum des Osterfestes rein mathematisch zu bestimmen.
Jahrgang 2020 - Erklärungskraft – Mathematik als Spiegel der Realität: Hervorstechende Publikationen
Der Fokus dieses Bandes liegt auf der Frage, wie Mathematik die Welt nicht nur beschreibt, sondern fundamentale Erklärungen für physikalische und biologische Phänomene liefert.
* Ben Orlin: „1994, the Year Calculus Was Born“. Ein Auszug aus seinem Buch, der die historische und inhaltliche Bedeutung der Infinitesimalrechnung beleuchtet.
* Paul Thagard: „Mathematical Knowledge and Reality“. Thagard setzt sich mit der Frage auseinander, ob mathematische Eigenschaften und Relationen reale Bestandteile der Welt sind.
* Mark Colyvan: „The Ins and Outs of Mathematical Explanation“. Ein Beitrag zur Philosophie der Mathematik, der untersucht, was eine "gute" mathematische Erklärung eigentlich auszeichnet. Colyvan untersucht die Rolle der Mathematik als Erklärungsmodell in der Wissenschaft, beispielhaft am „Honeycomb Theorem“ (Bienenwaben-Satz).
* Donald Teets – „Gauss’s Computation of the Easter Date“: Eine detaillierte Aufarbeitung, wie der "Fürst der Mathematiker", Carl Friedrich Gauß, einen Algorithmus entwickelte, um das Datum des Osterfestes rein mathematisch zu bestimmen.
February 15, 2021
It is incoherent as a book - different articles are aimed at entirely different readers. But there are good articles! A few groups:
I learned stuff!: The Inescapable Casino, Median voter theorem, Decades-old CS conjecture solved, Three-body problem, On your mark get set multiply
Usually new intuitions, nothing formal. These were cool though. I wish the book was all like this.
I didn't learn much but it was an entertaining story about math or mathematicians: Taking Newton into the quantum world, Sid Sackson, Rubik's Cube, tenth Heegner number, Gauss Easter
These were fun. "I didn't learn much" may be particular to me (in some cases like Rubik because I already had readit); I don't mean that they're fluff.
What the actual Fuchs: Kleinian and Quasi-Fuchsian Groups, Hyperbolic 3-manifold, Higher Dimensional Geometries
These read like journal articles. By that I mean, I'm super lost. I'm like angry that they're included, because I bet 95% of readers (a weird self-selecting group in the first place) will just glaze over at best or get intimidated at worst.
I learned stuff!: The Inescapable Casino, Median voter theorem, Decades-old CS conjecture solved, Three-body problem, On your mark get set multiply
Usually new intuitions, nothing formal. These were cool though. I wish the book was all like this.
I didn't learn much but it was an entertaining story about math or mathematicians: Taking Newton into the quantum world, Sid Sackson, Rubik's Cube, tenth Heegner number, Gauss Easter
These were fun. "I didn't learn much" may be particular to me (in some cases like Rubik because I already had readit); I don't mean that they're fluff.
What the actual Fuchs: Kleinian and Quasi-Fuchsian Groups, Hyperbolic 3-manifold, Higher Dimensional Geometries
These read like journal articles. By that I mean, I'm super lost. I'm like angry that they're included, because I bet 95% of readers (a weird self-selecting group in the first place) will just glaze over at best or get intimidated at worst.
November 29, 2020
Fun, brain invigorating. Some were a bit beyond me but at least half of them were pretty enjoyable
Want to read
October 2, 2021Strogatz does it again. Such a good math expositor. Explains why a 3 drug cocktail is mathematically necessary for AIDS patients. And Ben Orlin celebrates the 1994 invention of Calculus.
Read
October 7, 2022The articles are all over the map from the perspective of mathematical knowledge and sophistication required. Still, some nice pieces.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews