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Lost in the Math Museum: A Survival Story
 
Colin Adams Williams College, Williamstown, MA
Lost in the Math Museum
MAA Press: An Imprint of the American Mathematical Society
Softcover ISBN:  978-1-4704-6858-3
Product Code:  NML/55
List Price: $35.00
MAA Member Price: $26.25
AMS Member Price: $26.25
eBook ISBN:  978-1-4704-7131-6
Product Code:  NML/55.E
List Price: $35.00
MAA Member Price: $26.25
AMS Member Price: $26.25
Softcover ISBN:  978-1-4704-6858-3
eBook: ISBN:  978-1-4704-7131-6
Product Code:  NML/55.B
List Price: $70.00 $52.50
MAA Member Price: $52.50 $39.38
AMS Member Price: $52.50 $39.38
Lost in the Math Museum
Click above image for expanded view
Lost in the Math Museum: A Survival Story
Colin Adams Williams College, Williamstown, MA
MAA Press: An Imprint of the American Mathematical Society
Softcover ISBN:  978-1-4704-6858-3
Product Code:  NML/55
List Price: $35.00
MAA Member Price: $26.25
AMS Member Price: $26.25
eBook ISBN:  978-1-4704-7131-6
Product Code:  NML/55.E
List Price: $35.00
MAA Member Price: $26.25
AMS Member Price: $26.25
Softcover ISBN:  978-1-4704-6858-3
eBook ISBN:  978-1-4704-7131-6
Product Code:  NML/55.B
List Price: $70.00 $52.50
MAA Member Price: $52.50 $39.38
AMS Member Price: $52.50 $39.38
  • Book Details
     
     
    Anneli Lax New Mathematical Library
    Volume: 552022; 209 pp
    MSC: Primary 00

    “But when I turned the handle on the door, suddenly the buzzing went crazy. I slapped my hands over my ears, when I should have jerked the door shut. It flew open, and I was face-to-face with the Weierstrass function. It was the ugliest function I could imagine, with kinks, and kinks on kinks and kinks on those. And it was shrieking in its buzz-like way, vibrating all over like a plucked string. I stood there, frozen for just a second, and then I was sprinting after the others, with the wild frantic buzzing right behind me.”

    From the twisted imagination of best-selling author Colin Adams (Zombies & Calculus, The Knot Book) comes this tale of sixteen-year-old Kallie trying to escape death at the hands of the exhibits in a mathematics museum. Kallie crosses paths with Carl Gauss, Bertrand Russell, Sophie Germain, G. H. Hardy, and John von Neumann, as she tries to save herself, her dad, and his colleague Maria from the deadly Hairy Ball theorem, the harrowing Hilbert Hotel, the bisecting Ham Sandwich machine, and a variety of other mathematical menaces. It's a wild romp through a mathematical bestiary featuring the bizarre, the exotic, and the counterintuitive. You'll never think of math the same way again.

    Readership

    Undergraduate students interested in popular exposition.

  • Table of Contents
     
     
    • Chapters
    • A story to tell
    • The hotel
    • The hairy ball
    • Let’s make a deal
    • The barber
    • The Hilbert curve
    • The prime shop
    • The Wierstrass function
    • A ham sandwich
    • Monty Hall redux
    • The salesman
    • Hilbert hotel redux
    • On principle
    • Ellie
    • The mountain
    • On the surface
    • A journey
    • A random reunion
    • An apology
    • The mathemagician
    • The sphere
    • The hypothesis
    • The cipher
    • Appendices
    • More on Chapter 1 A story to tell
    • More on Chapter 2 The hotel
    • More on Chapter 3 The hairy ball
    • More on Chapter 4 Let’s make a deal
    • More on Chapter 5 The barber shop
    • More on Chapter 6 The Hilbert curve
    • More on Chapter 7 The prime shop
    • More on Chapter 8 The Wierstrass function
    • More on Chapter 9 A ham sandwich
    • More on Chapter 10 The Monty Hall redux
    • More on Chapter 11 The salesman
    • More on Chapter 12 The Hilbert hotel redux
    • More on Chapter 13 On principle
    • More on Chapter 14 Ellie
    • More on Chapter 15 The mountain
    • More on Chapter 16 on the surface
    • More on Chapter 17 A journey
    • More on Chapter 18 A random reunion
    • More on Chapter 19 An apology
    • More on Chapter 20 The mathemagician
    • More on Chapter 21 The sphere
    • More on Chapter 22 The hypothesis
    • More on Chapter 23 The cipher
  • Reviews
     
     
    • Readers who love mathematics will love this book. Whether it will convert the haters is questionable, but that holds for any of the popular math books. This mixture of a well written adventure story and popular mathematics is a deserving attempt that, with some guidance, can challenge and trigger the interest of secondary school students.

      Adhemar François Bultheel, zbMATH
    • The exercises are intriguing and appropriate... This would be a fine gift for someone who wonders why you are interested in mathematics. And you yourself will enjoy seeing the presentation of many of your favorite mathematical theorems and objects in this story.

      Joel Haack, University of Northern Iowa
  • Requests
     
     
    Review Copy – for publishers of book reviews
    Accessibility – to request an alternate format of an AMS title
Volume: 552022; 209 pp
MSC: Primary 00

“But when I turned the handle on the door, suddenly the buzzing went crazy. I slapped my hands over my ears, when I should have jerked the door shut. It flew open, and I was face-to-face with the Weierstrass function. It was the ugliest function I could imagine, with kinks, and kinks on kinks and kinks on those. And it was shrieking in its buzz-like way, vibrating all over like a plucked string. I stood there, frozen for just a second, and then I was sprinting after the others, with the wild frantic buzzing right behind me.”

From the twisted imagination of best-selling author Colin Adams (Zombies & Calculus, The Knot Book) comes this tale of sixteen-year-old Kallie trying to escape death at the hands of the exhibits in a mathematics museum. Kallie crosses paths with Carl Gauss, Bertrand Russell, Sophie Germain, G. H. Hardy, and John von Neumann, as she tries to save herself, her dad, and his colleague Maria from the deadly Hairy Ball theorem, the harrowing Hilbert Hotel, the bisecting Ham Sandwich machine, and a variety of other mathematical menaces. It's a wild romp through a mathematical bestiary featuring the bizarre, the exotic, and the counterintuitive. You'll never think of math the same way again.

Readership

Undergraduate students interested in popular exposition.

  • Chapters
  • A story to tell
  • The hotel
  • The hairy ball
  • Let’s make a deal
  • The barber
  • The Hilbert curve
  • The prime shop
  • The Wierstrass function
  • A ham sandwich
  • Monty Hall redux
  • The salesman
  • Hilbert hotel redux
  • On principle
  • Ellie
  • The mountain
  • On the surface
  • A journey
  • A random reunion
  • An apology
  • The mathemagician
  • The sphere
  • The hypothesis
  • The cipher
  • Appendices
  • More on Chapter 1 A story to tell
  • More on Chapter 2 The hotel
  • More on Chapter 3 The hairy ball
  • More on Chapter 4 Let’s make a deal
  • More on Chapter 5 The barber shop
  • More on Chapter 6 The Hilbert curve
  • More on Chapter 7 The prime shop
  • More on Chapter 8 The Wierstrass function
  • More on Chapter 9 A ham sandwich
  • More on Chapter 10 The Monty Hall redux
  • More on Chapter 11 The salesman
  • More on Chapter 12 The Hilbert hotel redux
  • More on Chapter 13 On principle
  • More on Chapter 14 Ellie
  • More on Chapter 15 The mountain
  • More on Chapter 16 on the surface
  • More on Chapter 17 A journey
  • More on Chapter 18 A random reunion
  • More on Chapter 19 An apology
  • More on Chapter 20 The mathemagician
  • More on Chapter 21 The sphere
  • More on Chapter 22 The hypothesis
  • More on Chapter 23 The cipher
  • Readers who love mathematics will love this book. Whether it will convert the haters is questionable, but that holds for any of the popular math books. This mixture of a well written adventure story and popular mathematics is a deserving attempt that, with some guidance, can challenge and trigger the interest of secondary school students.

    Adhemar François Bultheel, zbMATH
  • The exercises are intriguing and appropriate... This would be a fine gift for someone who wonders why you are interested in mathematics. And you yourself will enjoy seeing the presentation of many of your favorite mathematical theorems and objects in this story.

    Joel Haack, University of Northern Iowa
Review Copy – for publishers of book reviews
Accessibility – to request an alternate format of an AMS title
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