The Art of Mathematics: Coffee Time in Memphis | 
| Author: Bela Bollobas
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $36.99
Buy New: $15.00
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Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 483500
Media: Paperback
Pages: 359
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9 x 5.8 x 0.9
ISBN: 0521693950
Dewey Decimal Number: 519
EAN: 9780521693950
ASIN: 0521693950
Publication Date: September 25, 2006
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Product Description
Can a Christian escape from a lion? How quickly can a rumor spread? Can you fool an airline into accepting oversize baggage? Recreational mathematics is full of frivolous questions where the mathematician's art can be brought to bear. But play often has a purpose. In mathematics, it can sharpen skills, provide amusement, or simply surprise, and books of problems have been the stock-in-trade of mathematicians for centuries. This collection is designed to be sipped from, rather than consumed in one sitting. The questions range in difficulty: the most challenging offer a glimpse of deep results that engage mathematicians today; even the easiest prompt readers to think about mathematics. All come with solutions, many with hints, and most with illustrations. Whether you are an expert, or a beginner or an amateur mathematician, this book will delight for a lifetime.
Book Description
Can a Christian escape from a lion? How quickly can a rumour spread? This collection of problems is designed to be sipped from, rather than consumed in one sitting. Whether you are an expert, a beginner or an amateur, this book will delight for a lifetime.
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| Customer Reviews:
Insights December 16, 2008
Mihai Prunescu (Freiburg, Germany)
The book contains surprinsingly deep insights in very short proofs. Recommanded to anyone loving mathematics.
Nostalgia trip for a lapsed mathematician June 4, 2008
Beagle (Sydney)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
Back in the days when I was a mathematician I remember taking part in many coffee room discussions with problems similar to the ones found in this book. Sometimes problems like these arise from a detail of a concrete problem that a mathematician is working on, and other times the coffee room problem comes first and turns into something much bigger and deeper than it first appeared.
A good coffee room problem is one whose statement can be understood by all present (from the lowliest honours student upwards) so that everyone can take part in thinking about the solution without needing specialised knowledge. The problem should also be hard enough to keep everyone occupied for a while and should be more profound than it looks.
This book is a collection of such problems. The book is divided into three sections: problems, hints and solutions. Even if you can't solve a given problem, just the act of working on it for a few minutes, hours or days (depending on your stamina) before checking the answer still gives you a lot of insight into the problem and a great deal of enjoyment. The solutions often go deeper than just the original problem. For example, the first problem of the book about a lion chasing a christian in a circular arena turns out to be quite a famous problem that has been generalised to higher dimensions, different types of arenas and greater numbers of lions!
So you won't be forced to give up on all of them, some of the problems are much easier than others, but all will get you thinking. Although many are even accessible to the advanced high school student, a fair bit more sophistication is often required, particularly to fully appreciate the solutions. I believe Bollobas intended his primary audience to be the type of people you might meet at a university mathematics department coffee room, but it is also perfect for lapsed mathematicians like me who still remember enough mathematics to tackle this book. In this sense I found it a real nostalgia trip.
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