Product Description

Clifton Fadiman's classic collection of mathematical stories, essays and anecdotes first published in 1958, is now back in print. Ranging from the poignant to the comical to the surreal, these selections include writing by Aldous Huxley, Martin Gardner, H.G. Wells, George Gamow, G.H. Hardy, Plato, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and many others. Humorous and mysterious, this collection will please mathematicians and everyone else who loves a good story full of stimulating ideas. In this intriguing collection of stories we learn of the young mathematician who chases his fiancee into the fourth dimension, how a group of Australian soldier's lives were saved by a lesson in basic topology, and of Mephisto's search for mathematical truth. Any interested reader will be amused, beguiled -- and perhaps even slightly instructed -- by this wonderfully diverse collection of writing. Clifton Fadiman's prolific career as an essayist, critic, anthologist, and radio show host has spanned the last five decades. His books include The Lifetime Reading Plan and a collection of essays, Party of One. He served for many years on the board of editors of the Book-of-the-Month Club.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #341607 in Books
• Published on: 1997-04-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 298 pages

New Scientist
Math can be a more rewarding source of fun and laughter than I thought possible.

Ingram
Clifton Fadiman's classic collection of mathematical stories, essays and anecdotes first published in 1958, is now back in print. Ranging from the poignant to the comical to the surreal, these selections include writing by Aldous Huxley, Martin Gardner, H.G. Wells, George Gamow, G.H. Hardy, Plato, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and many others.

About the Author
Clifton Fadiman's prolific career as an essayist, critic, anthologist, and radio show host has spanned the last five decades. His books include The Lifetime Reading Plan and a collection of essays, Party of One. He served for many years on the board of editors of the Book-of-the-Month Club.

Customer Reviews

JEEPERS! An interesting book about math?
What a relief to open the pages of this book. I approach mathematics as a subject necessary, but always painful, to learn. Dare I say I love this book? Some of the short stories are humorous, some are endearing, some have common characters. All deal with mathematics in one way or another. Fadiman's book succeeded where so many others failed--it interested me.

A LIFE LEARNING POINT: This book closely tied math with imagination and fantasy--a connection never clearly drawn in my public education. I think, though, that it's very important to present mathematics as the language for interpreting the world that it is...rather than as a cold and mostly irrelevant subject to get C minuses in! IT MADE MATH EXCITING. Yikes, did I say that? It is another way to know why your baseball is going to break the window, how to build a spaceship in your back yard, and how to teleport to Argentina in 0 seconds flat.

A real tangible benefit to reading this book was learning the derivation of Pythagoras' Theorom. Not to sound like an idiot, but I think most of us went through high school geometry having no clue where a2 + b2 = c2 came from. In two pages, this book explained it so clearly to me that I laughed out loud. IF ONLY THEY USED THIS TO TEACH ME INSTEAD OF A BRUTAL MATH BOOK!

This book is worth it in Hard Cover or Paperback. Own it and you too can open up to your closest friends and admit you liked a book about math...

Fantasia the Great
You don't have to be mathematically inclined to enjoy this collection, but it helps. On the other hand, if you take your math too seriously, this book may go right under your head. This anthology was first assembled in 1958, with some stories dating back to the 1920s, so some of the accounts of how machines could be used in the future now make one want to say, "If only you knew". Some of the best stories, however, are timeless. Section 2 (Imaginaries) is the best; my favorites are A Subway Named Moebius, And He Built a Crooked House, A Botts and the Moebius Strip, The Captured Cross-Section, and No-Sided Professor. A science-fiction writer friend once pooh-poohed this collection as amateurish sci-fi, but the rest of us will love it. It's great to have it back in print.

just as good as i remember
i have a very old copy that belonged to my uncle, a math proffessor...and i would recommend this to anyone who enjoys math and science fiction...it is great even for those who dont understand in depth math concepts because everything is at a level that most will understand. I first read at age 12, and i liked it then and still do. READ IT!!!!!