The Mathematical Magpie -

Clifton Fadiman

Fireside Books

1981

300 páginas

10h 0m

ISBN-10: 0671438077

*The Mathematical Magpie*, Being more stories, mainly transcendental, plus subsets of essays, rhymes, music, anecdotes, epigrams and other prime oddments and diversions, rational or irrational, all derived from the infinite domain of mathematics. Assembled and edited with a new foreword, an introduction and commentaries, by *Clifton Fadiman*, author of _*Fantasia Mathematica*_.

[Backcover] "Even more varied than the widely enjoyed *Fantasia Mathematica*, this is Clifton Fadiman's second anthology of stories, cartoons, essays, rhymes, music, anecdotes, epigrams and other oddments to amuse and delight mathematicians and amateurs alike.

It is a book which will appeal to all levels of minds - mathematicians, science-fiction readers and just ordinary literate folk. Divided into five sections, the book has eighty-four selections from short-story writers, humorists, essayists, novelists, poets, composers, aphorists, and even Monsignor.

The first section is *A Set of Imaginaries*, comprising ten science-fiction stories, each based on some mathematical concept. The second, called *Comic Sections*, and the third, *Irregular Figures*, are made up of stories or fables in which the central figure is something of a mathematical oddball. The last two sections are *Simple Harmonic Motions*, offering musical selections with a mathematical base, and *Dividends and Remainders*, a collection of apathegms, anecdotes, poems, limericks, and other miscellaneous material.

If you enjoy making 2 plus 2 equals 4 or E equal MC² - and even if you don't - *The Mathematical Magpie* will entertain you for hours on end.