Burkard Polster

Q.E.D. presents some of the most famous mathematical proofs in a charming book that will appeal to nonmathematicians and math experts alike. Grasp in an instant why Pythagoras's theorem must be correct. Follow the ancient Chinese proof of the volume formula for the frustrating frustum, and Archimedes' method for finding the volume of a sphere. Discover the secrets of pi and why, contrary to popular belief, squaring the circle really is possible. Study the subtle art of mathematical domino tumbling, and find out how slicing cones helped save a city and put a man on the moon.

As a juggler the author likes to finish his performances with a stunt that combines props and techniques from a variety of juggling disciplines. Imagine him idling on a giraffe unicycle, while balancing a spinning basketball on a mouth stick, and toss-juggling a sword, a toilet plunger, and a rubber chicken. As a mathematician he is also interested in the treasure trove of beautiful mathematics used to model the different activities in a juggler's repertoire. In this book he provides an intellectually stimulating collection of mostly self-contained mathematical essays that introduce the reader to many elegant results and techniques from a wide range of mathematical disciplines such as combinatorics, graph theory, knot theory, mechanics, differential equations, control theory, and robotics. "The Mathematics of Juggling" is the first comprehensive account summarizing and expanding the results in the literature on juggling tricks and skills, as well as the mathematics behind these tricks and skills. Anybody who is not put off by the word "mathematics" in the title of this book should have a good time reading it.

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.

Just imagine a place in which things turned upside down are still right-side up, where the laws of nature as we know them are suspended, ignored, or even expanded. That’s the fantastic universe of Eye Twisters , which features incredible ambigrams—calligraphic designs that have not just one, but two interpretations at once. Though these visual conundrums have existed for years, they were virtually unknown until recently, when John Langdon—who provided the foreword here—created some superb examples for Dan Brown’s bestselling novel Angels & Demons . In addition to a history of the form, and suggestions for ambigram spotting in the natural world, this magnificent compilation showcases a variety from several masters of the style, including M.C. Escher, Scott Kim, Gustave Verbeek, Rob Gonsalves, and many more.

Mel Gibson teaching Euclidean geometry, Meg Ryan and Tim Robbins acting out Zeno's paradox, Michael Jackson proving in three different ways that 7 x 13 = 28. These are just a few of the intriguing mathematical snippets that occur in hundreds of movies. Burkard Polster and Marty Ross pored through the cinematic calculus to create this thorough and entertaining survey of the quirky, fun, and beautiful mathematics to be found on the big screen.Math Goes to the Movies is based on the authors’ own collection of more than 700 mathematical movies and their many years using movie clips to inject moments of fun into their courses. With more than 200 illustrations, many of them screenshots from the movies themselves, this book provides an inviting way to explore math, featuring such movies as:• Good Will Hunting• A Beautiful Mind• Stand and Deliver• Pi• Die Hard• The Mirror Has Two FacesThe authors use these iconic movies to introduce and explain important and famous mathematical ideas: higher dimensions, the golden ratio, infinity, and much more. Not all math in movies makes sense, however, and Polster and Ross talk about Hollywood’s most absurd blunders and outrageous mathematical scenes. Interviews with mathematical consultants to movies round out this engaging journey into the realm of cinematic mathematics.This fascinating behind-the-scenes look at movie math shows how fun and illuminating equations can be.

Crisscross, zigzag, bowtie, devil, angel, or which are the longest, the shortest, the strongest, and the weakest lacings? Pondering the mathematics of shoelaces, the author paints a vivid picture of the simple, beautiful, and surprising characterizations of the most common shoelace patterns. The mathematics involved is an attractive mix of combinatorics and elementary calculus. This book will be enjoyed by mathematically minded people for as long as there are shoes to lace.

How do you convey to your students, colleagues and friends some of the beauty of the kind of mathematics you are obsessed with? If you are a mathematician interested in finite or topological geometry and combinatorial designs, you could start by showing them some of the (400+) pictures in the "picture book". Pictures are what this book is all about; original pictures of everybody's favorite geometries such as configurations, projective planes and spaces, circle planes, generalized polygons, mathematical biplanes and other designs which capture much of the beauty, construction principles, particularities, substructures and interconnections of these geometries. The level of the text is suitable for advanced undergraduates and graduate students. Even if you are a mathematician who just wants some interesting reading you will enjoy the author's very original and comprehensive guided tour of small finite geometries and geometries on surfaces This guided tour includes lots of sterograms of the spatial models, games and puzzles and instructions on how to construct your own pictures and build some of the spatial models yourself.

Putting Two and Two Together is a humorous and quirky collection of unusual, ingenious, and beautiful morsels of mathematics. Authors Burkard Polster (YouTube's Mathologer) and Marty Ross delve into mathematical puzzles and phenomena in engaging stories featuring current events, sports, and history, many flavored with a distinctive bit of Australiana. Each chapter ends with “puzzles to ponder” that will spur further reflection.These stories were written for a general audience, and originally appeared in the Maths Masters column in The Age newspaper. The book offers mathematical entertainment for curious readers of all ages, and assumes a minimum of mathematical background.

One century after Hilbert constructed the first example of a non-classical affine plane, this book aims to summarize all the major results about geometries on surfaces. Acting both as a reference and a monograph, the authors have included detailed sections on what is known as well as outlining problems that remain to be solved. There are sections on classical geometries, methods for constructing non-classical geometries and classifications and characterizations of geometries. This work is related to a host of other fields including approximation, convexity, differential geometry topology and many more. This book will appeal to students, researchers and lecturers working in geometry or any one of the many associated areas outlined above.