Zvi Artstein - Mathematics and the Real World torrent

Mathematics and the Real World: The Remarkable Role of Evolution in the Making of Mathematics

By Zvi Artstein.


Pages : 426 pages
Publisher : Prometheus Books, 2014
ISBN-13 : 978-1616140915
Format : EPUB

In this accessible and illuminating study of how the science of
mathematics developed, a veteran math researcher and educator looks at
the ways in which our evolutionary makeup is both a help and a
hindrance to the study of math.


Artstein chronicles the discovery of important mathematical
connections between mathematics and the real world from ancient times
to the present. The author then describes some of the contemporary
applications of mathematics -- in probability theory, in the study
of human behavior, and in combination with computers, which give
mathematics unprecedented power.


The author concludes with an insightful discussion of why mathematics,
for most people, is so frustrating. He argues that the rigorous
logical structure of math goes against the grain of our predisposed
ways of thinking as shaped by evolution, presumably because the talent
needed to cope with logical mathematics gave the human race as a whole
no evolutionary advantage. With this in mind, he offers ways to
overcome these innate impediments in the teaching of math.


Author
======

Zvi Artstein is the Hettie H. Heineman Professor of Mathematics at
The Weizmann Institute of Science, where he has worked for over
thirty-eight years as a scientist, a teacher, and an administrator. He
is the author of more than 120 scientific articles published in
peer-reviewed journals.

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