Barry Mazur
Auteur de Imagining Numbers (Particularly the Square Root of minus Fifteen)
A propos de l'auteur
Barry Mazur is Gerhard Gade University Professor at Harvard University.
Œuvres de Barry Mazur
Oeuvres associées
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
- Autres noms
- Mazur, Barry Charles
- Date de naissance
- 1937-12-19
- Sexe
- male
- Lieu de naissance
- New York City, New York, USA
- Études
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Princeton University (PhD) - Professions
- mathematician
professor - Relations
- Mazur, Joseph (brother)
- Organisations
- Harvard University
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
National Academy of Sciences
American Philosophical Society
American Mathematical Society - Prix et distinctions
- Chauvenet Prize (1994)
Leroy P. Steele Prize (Seminal Contribution to Research, 2000)
Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry (1966)
Chern Medal (2022)
Membres
Critiques
Prix et récompenses
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Auteurs associés
Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 6
- Aussi par
- 1
- Membres
- 358
- Popularité
- #66,978
- Évaluation
- 3.6
- Critiques
- 5
- ISBN
- 15
- Langues
- 2
If you know your mathematics, you'll see that that is a carefully constructed sentence. When I say i, I am not referring to me, as in the author; I'm referring to i, as in, the square root of -1. i of course is not a sentient creature; it does not have likes and dislikes. But if it did, I think it would find this volume as disappointing as I do.
Understand: I have a degree in mathematics. But that was a third of a century ago, and we never did much with complex numbers anyway. I hoped this would be a chance to re-learn, and maybe to learn some interesting sidelights.
Of course, anyone hoping to find serious mathematics in a popular book runs a high risk of disappointment. The cover description talks about poetry, not complex numbers. But this was just so... airy. Pages and pages and pages about the imagination, and imagining things. But i, and the imaginary and complex numbers, despite their name, are not imaginary. The fact that you can't have 23i apples notwithstanding, complex are real -- and so important that the so-called "fundamental theorem of algebra" is all about complex numbers and solutions to algebraic equations.
The point is, a good mathematics book builds. It starts with simple mathematics (not wild philosophy) and adds things to it. That's true whether it's designed for the common reader or for post-doctoral researchers. The building in this book is not mathematical.
And there are some minor errors. For example, page 48 talks about double negatives -- e.g., in mathematics, the product of two negative numbers is a positive. Mazur analogizes this to language, were a double negative is a positive. But this isn't always true. Yes, in (standard) English, to say "I am not not going to the store" means "I am going to the store." But in many other languages, "I am not not going to the store" is an emphatic: "I'm definitely not going to the store" -- and, indeed, this is true in English dialects as well; "I ain't got no money" does not mean "I have money"; it means "I don't have money at all."
In retrospect, I am not the audience for this book; I wanted mathematics. You have every right to want something else. But if you want mathematics, get something else and leave this for the poets. i really does get left out of this book for far too long.
Bottom line, dear author: next time, please cut to the math!… (plus d'informations)