Islands of Truth: A Mathematical Mystery Cruise

by Ivars Peterson

1st Edition, 1st Printing. As New in plastic protective covering. Light foxing top edge. Pages are crisp and clean and binding is tight. Solid Book.

Genres: Mathematics, Nonfiction, Science

325 pages, Hardcover

First published May 15, 1990

Reviews

[David Zerangue · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book encompasses a number of mathematical concepts and moves in a whirlwind fashion. The first half of the first chapter I could follow. I quickly became lost as I moved further along the first chapter and into the second chapter. Luckily, the third and subsequent chapters were a bit less abstract (more in alignment with my interests, background, etc.) that I was able to appreciate the topics. It started getting a bit abstract again in the last two chapters. I would imagine mathematicians enjoy reading this book as it is probably (in their view) a layman's book on the various topics. I do not believe us non-mathematicians would find it such an easy read (as I did not). Regardless, I certainly have an appreciation for the field and for those working in this field.

[Tom Schulte · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a gentle introduction to such topics as chaos theory, topology (knots), pi, polynomial complexity, etc. This was on my shelf since the sort of thing was highly stimulating as a mathematics undergrad. I still recall the definition here of concave vs. convex around connecting points.