Название: Excursions in Modern Mathematics, 10th Edition
Автор: Peter Tannenbaum
Издательство: Pearson Education, Inc.
Год: 2022
Страниц: 595
Язык: английский
Формат: pdf (true)
Размер: 54.9 MB

For courses in Liberal Arts Mathematics.

Excursions in Modern Mathematics introduces non-majors to the power and beauty of math. By developing an appreciation for the aesthetics and applicability of mathematics, students who previously felt math was an “unknowable” subject can approach it with a new perspective. Contemporary topics ranging from elections, to networks, to analyzing data show students that math is an accessible tool that can be applicable and interesting for anyone. Refinement and updating of examples and exercises, plus increased resources for students and instructors, makes the 10th Edition a relevant, accessible, and complete program.

Excursions in Modern Mathematics is a travelogue into that vast and alien frontier that many people perceive mathematics to be. My goal is to show the open-minded reader that mathematics is a lively, interesting, useful, and surprisingly rich human activity. The “excursions” in Excursions represent a collection of topics chosen to meet the following simple criteria.

- Applicability. There is no need to worry here about that great existential question of college mathematics: What is this stuff good for? The connection between the mathematics presented in these excursions and down-to-earth, concrete real-life problems is transparent and immediate.
- Accessibility. As a general rule, the excursions in this text do not presume a background beyond standard high school mathematics—by and large, intermediate algebra and a little Euclidean geometry are appropriate and sufficient prerequisites. (In the few instances in which more advanced concepts are unavoidable, an effort has been made to provide enough background to make the material self-contained.) A word of caution—this does not mean that the excursions in this book are easy! In mathematics, as in many other walks of life, simple and basic are not synonymous with easy and superficial.
- Modernity. Unlike much of traditional mathematics, which is often hundreds of years old, most of the mathematics in this text has been discovered within the last 100 years, and in some cases, within the last couple of decades. Modern mathematical discoveries do not have to be the exclusive province of professional mathematicians.
- Aesthetics. The notion that there is such a thing as beauty in mathematics is surprising to most casual observers. There is an important aesthetic component in mathematics, and just as in art and music (which mathematics very much resembles), it often surfaces in the simplest ideas. A fundamental objective of this text is to develop an appreciation of the aesthetic elements of mathematics.