Mathematicians delight in finding surprising connections between seemingly disparate areas of mathematics. Whole domains of modern mathematics have arisen from exploration of such connections—consider analytic number theory or algebraic topology. Finding Ellipses is a delight-filled romp across a three-way unexpected connection between complex analysis, linear algebra, and projective geometry.

The book begins with Blaschke products, complex-analytic functions that are generalizations of disk automorphisms. In the analysis of Blaschke products, we encounter, in a quite natural way, an ellipse inside the unit disk. The story continues by introducing the reader to Poncelet's theorem—a beautiful result in projective geometry that ties together two conics and, in particular, two ellipses, one circumscribed by a polygon that is inscribed in the second. The Blaschke ellipse and the Poncelet ellipse turn out to be the same ellipse, and the connection is illuminated by considering the numerical range of a \(2 \times 2\) matrix. The numerical range is a convex subset of the complex plane that contains information about the geometry of the transformation represented by a matrix. Through the numerical range of \(n \times n\) matrices, we learn more about the interplay between Poncelet's theorem and Blaschke products.

The story ranges widely over analysis, algebra, and geometry, and the exposition of the deep and surprising connections is lucid and compelling. Written for advanced undergraduates or beginning graduate students, this book would be the perfect vehicle for an invigorating and enlightening capstone exploration. The exercises and collection of extensive projects could be used as an embarkation point for a satisfying and rich research project.

You are invited to read actively using the accompanying interactive website, which allows you to visualize the concepts in the book, experiment, and develop original conjectures.

Hassler Whitney was a giant of twentieth-century mathematics. This biography paints a picture of him and includes dozens of revealing anecdotes. Mathematically, he had a rare detector that went off whenever he spotted a piece of mathematical gold, and he would then draw countless pictures, gradually forging a path from hunch to proof. This geometric path is seldom reflected in the rigor of his formal papers, but thanks to a close friendship and many conversations over decades, author Kendig was able to see how he actually worked. This book shows this through accessible accounts of his major mathematical contributions, with figures copiously supplied.

Whitney is probably best known for introducing the grandfather of today's innumerable embedding theorems—his strong embedding theorem stating that any smooth manifold can be smoothly embedded in a Euclidean space of twice the manifold's dimension. This in turn led to several standard techniques used every day in algebraic topology. Whitney also established the fundamentals of graph theory, the four-color problem, matroids, extending smooth functions, and singularities of smooth functions. He almost never used complicated technical machinery, so most of his work is accessible to a general reader with a modest mathematical background.

His math-music connection was intense: He played piano, violin, and viola and won “best composition of the year” while earning a Bachelor's degree in music at Yale. He was an accomplished mountain climber, and as a tinkerer, at age fourteen he built the large-format camera used to take this book's cover photograph. Whitney's family generously provided dozens of photographs appearing here for the very first time. This biography is a revealing portrait of a fascinating personality and a titan of twentieth-century mathematics.

Pick up this book and dive into one of eight chapters relating mathematics to fiber arts! Amazing exposition transports any interested person on a mathematical exploration that is rigorous enough to capture the hearts of mathematicians. The zenith of creativity is achieved as readers are led to knit, crochet, quilt, or sew a project specifically designed to illuminate the mathematics through its physical realization. The beautiful finished pieces provide a visual understanding of the mathematics that can be shared with those who view them. If you love mathematics or fiber arts, this book is for you!

Individual chapters are also available for purchase. Each self-contained chapter contains directions for a complete project in downloadable PDF format. See a list of all chapters.

Winner of a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award for 2017!

What does style mean in mathematics? Style is both how one does something and how one communicates what was done. In this book, the author investigates the worlds of the well-known numbers, the binomial coefficients. The author follows the example of Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style. Offering the reader 99 stories in various styles. The book celebrates the joy of mathematics and the joy of writing mathematics by exploring the rich properties of this familiar collection of numbers. For any one interested in mathematics, from high school students on up.

In the first decade of the twentieth century as Albert Einstein began formulating a revolutionary theory of gravity, the Italian mathematician Gregorio Ricci was entering the later stages of what appeared to be a productive if not particularly memorable career, devoted largely to what his colleagues regarded as the dogged development of a mathematical language he called the absolute differential calculus. In 1912, the work of these two dedicated scientists would intersect—and physics and mathematics would never be the same. Einstein's Italian Mathematicians chronicles the lives and intellectual contributions of Ricci and his brilliant student Tullio Levi-Civita, including letters, interviews, memoranda, and other personal and professional papers, to tell the remarkable, little-known story of how two Italian academicians, of widely divergent backgrounds and temperaments, came to provide the indispensable mathematical foundation—today known as the tensor calculus—for general relativity.

Mathematics: Rhyme and Reason is an exploration of the aesthetic value of mathematics and the culture of the mathematics community.

This book introduces budding mathematicians of all ages to mathematical ways of thinking through a series of chapters that mix episodes from the author's life with explanations of intriguing mathematical concepts and the stories of the mathematicians who discovered them. The chapters can be read independently, and most require only a background in basic high school algebra or geometry to appreciate the topics covered.

Part personal memoir, part appreciation of the poetry and humanity inherent in mathematics, this entertaining collection of stories, theorems, and reflections will be of interest to anyone curious about mathematics and the human beings who practice it.

In the interest of fostering a greater awareness and appreciation of mathematics and its connections to other disciplines and everyday life, MSRI and the AMS are publishing books in the Mathematical Circles Library series as a service to young people, their parents and teachers, and the mathematics profession.

Titles in this series are co-published with the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI).

Every mathematician is a person with a story. Limitless Minds tells those stories in an engaging way by featuring interviews with twelve leading mathematicians. They were invited to answer some key questions such as: Who and what were the influences that pointed them towards mathematics? Why do mathematicians devote their lives to discovering new mathematics? How do they see mathematics evolving in the future?

The book, written in an accessible style and enriched by dozens of images, offers a rare insight into the minds of mathematicians, provided in their own words. It will enlighten and inspire readers about the lives, passions, and discoveries of mathematicians.

Pay a visit to the Infinite Farm!

In Life on the Infinite Farm, mathematician and award-winning children's book author Richard Schwartz teaches about infinity and curved space through stories of whimsical farm animals. Join Gracie, the shoe-loving cow with infinitely many feet, Hammerwood, the gum-loving crocodile with an endless mouth, and their friends as they navigate the challenges that come with being infinitely large.

Children as young as 5 will enjoy the lighthearted illustrations and the fanciful approach to infinity. Older students (and even adult professional mathematicians) will also appreciate the more advanced ideas and geometric references. The two approaches are woven together to appeal to a wide audience, from budding mathematicians to hardcore geometers.

A Guide for Teachers and Parents is freely available with both simple and advanced lesson plans.

Additionally, page-by-page Notes on the Infinite Farm are also available. These notes are intended for a sophisticated mathematical audience but, perhaps, will be of some interest to people who are not mathematicians.

This is the first truly comprehensive and thorough history of the development of mathematics in the United States and Canada. This first volume of a two-volume work takes the reader from the European encounters with North America in the fifteenth century up to the emergence of the United States as a world leader in mathematics in the 1930s.

In the story of the Colonial period particular emphasis is given to several prominent Colonial figures—Jefferson, Franklin, and Rittenhouse—and four important early colleges—Québec, Harvard, Yale, and William & Mary. During the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century, mathematics in North America was largely the occupation of scattered individual pioneers: Bowditch, Farrar, Adrain, B. Peirce. This period is given a fuller treatment here than previously in the literature, including the creation of the first PhD programs and attempts to form organizations and found journals.

With the founding of Johns Hopkins University in 1876, the American mathematical research community was finally, and firmly, founded. The programs at Hopkins, Chicago, and Clark are detailed as are the influence of major European mathematicians, including especially Klein, Hilbert, and Sylvester. Extensive histories of early areas of American emphasis are provided, including axiomatics, topology, and group theory. Also included are the early histories of statistics and cryptology in America, laying the foundation for the latter topic's role in abstract algebra in the 1950s. The stories of both the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America are presented in detail.

David Zitarelli is emeritus Professor of Mathematics at Temple University. A decorated and acclaimed teacher, scholar, and expositor, he is one of the world's leading experts on the development of American mathematics. Author or co-author of over a dozen books, this is his magnum opus—sure to become the leading reference on the topic and essential reading, not just for historians. In clear and compelling prose, Zitarelli spins a tale accessible to experts, generalists, and anyone interested in the history of science in North America.

2018 PROSE Awards Honorable Mention

An Illustrated Theory of Numbers gives a comprehensive introduction to number theory, with complete proofs, worked examples, and exercises. Its exposition reflects the most recent scholarship in mathematics and its history.

Almost 500 sharp illustrations accompany elegant proofs, from prime decomposition through quadratic reciprocity. Geometric and dynamical arguments provide new insights, and allow for a rigorous approach with less algebraic manipulation. The final chapters contain an extended treatment of binary quadratic forms, using Conway's topograph to solve quadratic Diophantine equations (e.g., Pell's equation) and to study reduction and the finiteness of class numbers.

Data visualizations introduce the reader to open questions and cutting-edge results in analytic number theory such as the Riemann hypothesis, boundedness of prime gaps, and the class number 1 problem. Accompanying each chapter, historical notes curate primary sources and secondary scholarship to trace the development of number theory within and outside the Western tradition.

Requiring only high school algebra and geometry, this text is recommended for a first course in elementary number theory. It is also suitable for mathematicians seeking a fresh perspective on an ancient subject.

To view the author's website for sample syllabi, quizzes, student project ideas, and Python programming tutorials, click here.

Pushing Limits: From West Point to Berkeley and Beyond challenges the myth that mathematicians lead dull and ascetic lives. It recounts the unique odyssey of a noted mathematician who overcame military hurdles at West Point, Army Ranger School and the Vietnam War, and survived many civilian escapades—hitchhiking in third-world hotspots, fending off sharks in Bahamian reefs, and camping deep behind the forbidding Iron Curtain. From ultra-conservative West Point in the ’60s to ultra-radical Berkeley in the ’70s, and ultimately to genteel Georgia Tech in the ’80s, this is the tale of an academic career as noteworthy for its offbeat adventures as for its teaching and research accomplishments. It brings to life the struggles and risks underlying mathematical research, the unparalleled thrill of making scientific breakthroughs, and the joy of sharing those discoveries around the world. Hill's book is packed with energy, humor, and suspense, both physical and intellectual. Anyone who is curious about how one maverick mathematician thinks, who wants to relive the zanier side of the ’60s and ’70s, who wants an armchair journey into the third world, or who seeks an unconventional view of several of society's iconic institutions, will be drawn to this book.

Click here to Listen to an interview with author Ted Hill.

When origami met the worlds of design and engineering, both fields embraced the ancient art form, using its principles and practices to discover new problems and to generate inventive solutions.

This book demonstrates the potential of folding to improve the way things work, simplify how products are produced, and make possible new objects otherwise impossible. The solar collector, the felt stool, and the surgery tool have all been influenced in some way by folding paper. The example section is organized to show the folded figure next to the product prototype that was inspired by that work of origami. We have included models made from an array of materials over a range of sizes. This includes everything from a microscopic mechanism to huge solar panels designed to unfold in outer space. Most entries are at the prototype phase—meaning that physical hardware has been built to demonstrate the concept, but that the examples are not necessarily available commercially.

Y Origami? also includes brief learning activities related to paper folding, such as a discussion of Euler's formula, angular measurements, and developable surfaces, along with more advanced topics. Throughout the book many diagrams and photographs illustrate the advancing concepts and methods of origami as an art form and a problem-solving strategy.

Embark on a playful mathematical tour, aided by Lisl Gaal's illustrations of familiar scenes and whimsical triggers for the imagination. Along the way, find fruit stands arranged using polynomial multiplication, checkerboard tablecloths sewed with patterns of primes in a two-dimensional number system, and deceptive cats revealing that simple counting is not always so simple.

Grasping the mathematics in this book requires only a basic background in algebra and geometry, so while the ideas can be understood and enjoyed at a variety of levels, it is recommended for ages 13–99. Touching on topics in current research, this is a book to read and revisit, gaining new insights each time.

A Dingo Ate My Math Book presents ingenious, unusual, and beautiful nuggets of mathematics with a distinctly Australian flavor. It focuses, for example, on Australians' love of sports and gambling, and on Melbourne's iconic, mathematically inspired architecture. Written in a playful and humorous style, the book offers mathematical entertainment as well as a glimpse of Australian culture for the mathematically curious of all ages.

This collection of engaging stories was extracted from the Maths Masters column that ran from 2007 to 2014 in Australia's Age newspaper. The maths masters in question are Burkard Polster and Marty Ross, two (immigrant) Aussie mathematicians, who each week would write about math in the news, providing a new look at old favorites, mathematical history, quirks of school mathematics—whatever took their fancy. All articles were written for a very general audience, with the intention of being as inviting as possible and assuming a minimum of mathematical background.

Inverse problems occur frequently in science and technology, whenever we need to infer causes from effects that we can measure. Mathematically, they are difficult problems because they are unstable: small bits of noise in the measurement can completely throw off the solution. Nevertheless, there are methods for finding good approximate solutions.

Linear Inverse Problems and Tikhonov Regularization examines one such method: Tikhonov regularization for linear inverse problems defined on Hilbert spaces. This is a clear example of the power of applying deep mathematical theory to solve practical problems. Beginning with a basic analysis of Tikhonov regularization, this book introduces the singular value expansion for compact operators, and uses it to explain why and how the method works. Tikhonov regularization with seminorms is also analyzed, which requires introducing densely defined unbounded operators and their basic properties. Some of the relevant background is included in appendices, making the book accessible to a wide range of readers.

Near the Horizon starts out by considering several optical phenomena that can occur when the sun is near the horizon. One can sometimes see objects that are actually below the horizon. Sometimes there seems to be a dark strip in the middle of the solar disk. These are a result of the way that the atmosphere affects the geometry of light rays. Broer starts his book with the Fermat principle (rays of light take least-time paths) and deduces from it laws for refraction and reflection; by expressing these as conservation laws, he can handle both the case of inhomogeneous layers of air and the case of continuous variation in the refraction index. A surprising application is the brachistochrone problem, in which the path of fastest descent is determined by studying how a light ray would behave in a “flat earth” atmosphere whose refraction index is determined by the gravitational potential. This leads to a very interesting chapter on the cycloid and its properties.

The final chapters move from the elementary theory to a more sophisticated version in which the Fermat Principle leads to a Riemannian metric whose geodesics are the paths of light rays. This gives us an optics which is geometric in a new sense, and serves as a nice demonstration of the physical applicability of Riemannian geometry.

The book is written in a very personal and engaging style. Broer is passionate about the subject and its history, and his passion helps carry the reader along. The result is readable and charming.

Received an Honorable Mention in the mathematics category of the 2017 PROSE Awards!

Gallery of the Infinite is a mathematician's unique view of the infinitely many sizes of infinity. Written in a playful yet informative style, it introduces important concepts from set theory (including the Cantor Diagonalization Method and the Cantor-Bernstein Theorem) using colorful pictures, with little text and almost no formulas. It requires no specialized background and is suitable for anyone with an interest in the infinite, from advanced middle-school students to inquisitive adults.

New Horizons in Geometry represents the fruits of 15 years of work in geometry by a remarkable team of prize-winning authors Tom Apostol and Mamikon Mnatsakanian. It serves as a capstone to an amazing collaboration. Apostol and Mamikon provide fresh and powerful insights into geometry that requires only a modest background in mathematics. Using new and intuitively rich methods, they give beautifully illustrated proofs of results, the majority of which are new, and frequently develop extensions of familiar theorems that are often surprising and sometimes astounding. It is mathematical exposition of the highest order. The hundreds of full color illustrations by Mamikon are visually enticing and provide great motivation to read further and savor the wonderful results. Lengths, areas, and volumes of curves, surfaces, and solids are explored from a visually captivating perspective. It is an understatement to say that Apostol and Mamikon have breathed new life into geometry.

Mathematicians is a remarkable collection of ninety-two photographic portraits, featuring a selection of the most impressive mathematicians of our time. Acclaimed photographer Mariana Cook captures the exuberance and passion of these brilliant thinkers. The superb images are accompanied by autobiographical texts written by each mathematician. Together, the photographs and words illuminate a diverse group of men and women dedicated to the absorbing pursuit of mathematics.

The compelling black-and-white portraits introduce readers to mathematicians who are both young and old and from notably diverse backgrounds. They include Fields Medal winners, those at the beginning of major careers, and those who are long-established celebrities in the discipline. Their candid personal essays reveal unique and wide-ranging thoughts, opinions, and humor. The mathematicians discuss how they became interested in mathematics, why they love the subject, how they remain motivated in the face of mathematical challenges, and how their greatest contributions have paved new directions for future generations. Mathematicians in the book include Jean-Pierre Serre, Henri Cartan, Karen Uhlenbeck, David Blackwell, Eli Stein, John Conway, Timothy Gowers, Frances Kirwan, Peter Lax, William Massey, John Milnor, Cathleen Morawetz, John Nash, Pierre Deligne, and James Simons.

This book conveys the beauty and joy of mathematics to readers outside the field as well as those in it. These pictures and their texts are an inspiration, and a perfect gift for those who love mathematics as well as for those who think they can't do it!