Lewis Carroll
Charles Dodgson was a mathematics
lecturer and author of mathematics books who is better known by the pseudonym
Lewis Carroll. Dodgson is known especially for Alice's adventures in wonderland
(1865) and Through the looking glass (1872), children's books that are also
distinguished as satire and as examples of verbal wit.
He invented his pen
name by anglicizing the translation of his first two names into the Latin
'Carolus Lodovicus'. The son of a clergyman Dodgson, from 1846 to 1850,
attended Rugby School and graduated from Christ Church College Oxford in 1854,
coming first in the Finals. Dodgson remained there, lecturing on mathematics
and writing treatises and guides for students until 1881.
...excerpts
from his
biography. |
 Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass
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|
Henry Ernest Dudeney
Born 10 April 1857 in Mayfield,
Sussex, England Died 24 April 1930 in Lewes, Sussex, England. He learnt to play
chess at a young age and became interested in chess problems. From the age of
nine he was composing problems and puzzles which he published in a local paper.
Although he only had a basic education, he had a particular interest in
mathematics and studied mathematics and its history. He began to write articles
for magazines and joined a group of authors which included Arthur Conan Doyle.
He was doing well publishing mathematical puzzles under the pseudonym 'Sphinx'.
Read this
biography. |
Amusements
in Mathematics
Dover. A collection of teasers, first
published in 1917. For example"... the twelve ways that eight queens can be
placed on a chessboard without attacking one another..." .
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 536 Curious
Problems and Puzzles
Barnes & Noble Books. This book
is a compilation of some of Dudeney's most challenging conundrums culled from
two printed collections, MODERN PUZZLES and PUZZLES AND CURIOUS PROBLEMS and
runs the gamut from arithmetical, algebraic, and geometrical problems to game
and domino puzzles, combinatorial and topological problems, and match puzzles.
The answer section includes editorial footnotes, which in some instances point
out how a solution has been improved or a problem extended by later experts.
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Sam Loyd
Sam Loyd (born 31 Jan 1841 in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania , USA, died 10 April 1911 in New York, USA) was
America's greatest puzzle expert and invented thousands of ingenious and
tremendously popular puzzles.
After his death, Loyd's son published the
Cyclopedia of Puzzles, a huge collection of Loyd's puzzles which had appeared
in various newspapers and magazines over the previous fifty years.
Try his
15
puzzle or some other
classic
puzzles |
Mathematical Puzzles of Sam Loyd
Dover. A collection of classic puzzles and teasers.
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| Richard Mankiewicz |
 The Story of
Mathematics
Cassell. Things might have been different in
3B if this handsome book had been a set text. Gorgeously illustrated,
energetically written, full of smart and surprising quotations, it tells the
exhilarating history of maths, from Pythagoras to Einstein, from algebra to
fractals. But this is more than just a "biography". By interweaving maths and
modern art, maths and medieval theology, even maths and Mayan calendrics,
author Mankiewicz reveals the underlay of the mathematical tapestry, the
sometimes unexpected junctures where mathematics has altered our world view.
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| Boris Kordemsky |
 The Moscow Puzzles
Penguin. This
book has been a classic in the former Soviet Union since it was first published
in 1956, and it remains just as entertaining today. A master at making math fun
for his high school students, Boris Kordemsky loaded this clever collection
with a wide variety of math and logic related games and puzzles dealing with
magic squares, tricky weights and measures, properties of numbers, mathematical
tricks, and more. Number and math game fans are bound to find several new
amusements here. Even many of the well-known classics from generations past
take on new life with the fresh twists Kordemsky provides.
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|
Ivars Peterson
Read his
Mathland archive. |
 The Jungles of Randomness: A Mathematical Safari
John Wiley & Sons. We use the word random as though
we understood what it meant, but, of course, its superficial meaning only
betrays our deep ignorance of what is really going on. Random is mostly used to
label anything we can't predict, from the roll of a die to our spouse's next
major purchase, but what's actually happening to cause the unanticipated
results? Ivars Peterson makes this complexity simple in The Jungles of
Randomness.
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Paul Erdös
Erdös wrote a huge number of
significant papers about mathematics. See the
Erdös Number Project for more. |
 The Man Who Loved Only Numbers
Fourth Estate. A biography by Paul Hoffman. The story of Paul Erdös, the
most prolific and eccentric mathematician of our times, who lived for more than
six decades out of two tattered suitaces, and gave his love to numbers and the
search for mathematical proof. He published almost 1500 scholarly papers before
his death in 1996, and he probably thought more about math problems than anyone
in history. Like a traveling salesman offering his thoughts as wares,
Erdös would show up on the doorstep of one mathematician or another and
announce, "My brain is open." After working through a problem, he'd move on to
the next place, the next solution.
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also by
Paul Hoffman...
Arcimedes
Revenge
Penguin. A collection of articles on the highways
and byways of mathematics. The book is written in the tradition of Martin
Gardner and aims to be both entertaining and fascinating.
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|
Alan Turing
Alan Turing (1912 - 1954) was a
British mathematician who made history: His breaking of the German U-boat
Enigma cipher in World War II ensured Allied-American control of the Atlantic.
Visit Andrew Hodges' website devoted to the ideas of
Alan Turing. Visit also this java
implimentation of the
Enigma machine itself. |
 Alan Turing: the Enigma
Vintage. A
biography by Andrew Hodges. Alan Turing was a brilliant Cambridge mathematician
who has been described as the father of the modern computer. He masterminded
the cracking of the German Enigma code and was caught up in the secrecy and
bureaucracy of World War II and afterwards - continually frustrated in his
desire to build a machine which could think, as those with power over him
feared both his homosexuality and indiscretion. This is an account of his life,
which ended by his own hand.
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|
John Allen Paulos
|
Innumeracy
Penguin. This is the
book that made "innumeracy" a household word, at least in some households.
Paulos admits that "at least part of the motivation for any book is anger, and
this book is no exception. I'm distressed by a society which depends so
completely on mathematics and science and yet seems to indifferent to the
innumeracy and scientific illiteracy of so many of its citizens".
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A Mathematician reads the
Newspaper
Penguin. In this book the author reveals the
hidden mathematical angles in countless media stories. His real life
perspective on the statistics we rely on and how they can mislead is for anyone
interested in gaining a more accurate view of their world.
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|
Peter M. Higgins
|
 Mathematics for
the Curious
Oxford University Press. When do the hands of
a clock coincide? How likely is it that two children in the same class will
share a birthday? Should you play Roulette or the Lottery? How do we calculate
the volume of a doughnut? Why does the android Data in "Star Trek" lose at
poker? What is Fibonacci's Rabbit Problem? Many things in the world have a
mathematical side to them, as revealed by the puzzles and questions in this
book. It is written for anyone who is curious about mathematics and would like
a simple account of what it can do. Peter Higgins provides clear explanations
of the more mysterious features of childhood mathematics as well as novelties
and connections to prove that mathematics can be enjoyable and surprising.
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Books
The Nothing That Is
The Art of the infinite
Mind-storms, Harvester Press. All about logo
- how it was invented and how it works. A visionary book that began the
computer revolution in schools. The bible of thousands of teachers who have
sought creative ways to use computers in schools, this book tells the story of
the invention of LOGO, the first child-friendly computer programming
language.
Fractal Geometry of Nature 
Fractal Geometry of Nature In
19 papers from a December 1997 conference at Yale University, teachers mostly
of mathematics explain how they teach fractals, in order to help develop a set
of common elements by which others may do the same without having to make it up
all over each time.
The Beauty of Fractals