Interesting Number Paradox
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Interesting Number Paradox
The interesting number paradox is a humorous paradox which arises from the attempt to classify every natural number as either "interesting" or "uninteresting". The paradox states that every natural number is interesting. The " proof" is by contradiction: if there exists a non-empty set of uninteresting natural numbers, there would be a smallest uninteresting number – but the smallest uninteresting number is itself interesting because it is the smallest uninteresting number, thus producing a contradiction. "Interestingness" concerning numbers is not a formal concept in normal terms, but an innate notion of "interestingness" seems to run among some number theorists. Famously, in a discussion between the mathematicians G. H. Hardy and Srinivasa Ramanujan about interesting and uninteresting numbers, Hardy remarked that the number 1729 of the taxicab he had ridden seemed "rather a dull one", and Ramanujan immediately answered that it is interesting, being the smallest number that is ...
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Paradox
A paradox is a logically self-contradictory statement or a statement that runs contrary to one's expectation. It is a statement that, despite apparently valid reasoning from true premises, leads to a seemingly self-contradictory or a logically unacceptable conclusion. A paradox usually involves contradictory-yet-interrelated elements that exist simultaneously and persist over time. They result in "persistent contradiction between interdependent elements" leading to a lasting "unity of opposites". In logic, many paradoxes exist that are known to be invalid arguments, yet are nevertheless valuable in promoting critical thinking, while other paradoxes have revealed errors in definitions that were assumed to be rigorous, and have caused axioms of mathematics and logic to be re-examined. One example is Russell's paradox, which questions whether a "list of all lists that do not contain themselves" would include itself, and showed that attempts to found set theory on the identification ...
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Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems
Gödel's incompleteness theorems are two theorems of mathematical logic Mathematical logic is the study of logic, formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory. Research in mathematical logic commonly addresses the mathematical properties of for ... that are concerned with the limits of in formal axiomatic theories. These results, published by Kurt Gödel in 1931, are important both in mathematical logic and in the philosophy of mathematics. The theorems are widely, but not universally, interpreted as showing that Hilbert's program to find a complete and consistent set of axioms for all mathematics is impossible. The first incompleteness theorem states that no consistency, consistent system of axioms whose theorems can be listed by an effective procedure (i.e., an algorithm) is capable of proving all truths about the arithmetic of natural numbers. For any such consistent formal system, there will always b ...
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The Mathematics Teacher
Founded in 1920, The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) is a professional organization for schoolteachers of mathematics in the United States. One of its goals is to improve the standards of mathematics in education. NCTM holds annual national and regional conferences for teachers and publishes five journals. Journals NCTM publishes five official journals. All are available in print and online versions. ''Teaching Children Mathematics'' supports improvement of pre-K–6 mathematics education by serving as a resource for teachers so as to provide more and better mathematics for all students. It is a forum for the exchange of mathematics idea, activities, and pedagogical strategies, and or sharing and interpreting research. ''Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School'' supports the improvement of grade 5–9 mathematics education by serving as a resource for practicing and prospective teachers, as well as supervisors and teacher educators. It is a forum for the e ...
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Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it is the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States. ''Scientific American'' is owned by Springer Nature, which in turn is a subsidiary of Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. History ''Scientific American'' was founded by inventor and publisher Rufus Porter (painter), Rufus Porter in 1845 as a four-page weekly newspaper. The first issue of the large format newspaper was released August 28, 1845. Throughout its early years, much emphasis was placed on reports of what was going on at the United States Patent and Trademark Office, U.S. Patent Office. It also reported on a broad range of inventions including perpetual motion machines, an 1860 device for buoying vessels by Abraham Lincoln, and the universal joint which now can be found ...
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Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writings of Lewis Carroll, L. Frank Baum, and G. K. Chesterton.Martin (2010) He was also a leading authority on Lewis Carroll. ''The Annotated Alice'', which incorporated the text of Carroll's two Alice books, was his most successful work and sold over a million copies. He had a lifelong interest in magic and illusion and in 1999, MAGIC magazine named him as one of the "100 Most Influential Magicians of the Twentieth Century". He was considered the doyen of American puzzlers. He was a prolific and versatile author, publishing more than 100 books. Gardner was best known for creating and sustaining interest in recreational mathematicsand by extension, mathematics in generalthroughout the latter half of the 20th century, principally through his "Mathema ...
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Mathematics Magazine
''Mathematics Magazine'' is a refereed bimonthly publication of the Mathematical Association of America. Its intended audience is teachers of collegiate mathematics, especially at the junior/senior level, and their students. It is explicitly a journal of mathematics rather than pedagogy. Rather than articles in the terse "theorem-proof" style of research journals, it seeks articles which provide a context for the mathematics they deliver, with examples, applications, illustrations, and historical background. Paid circulation in 2008 was 9,500 and total circulation was 10,000. ''Mathematics Magazine'' is a continuation of ''Mathematics News Letter'' (1926-1934) and ''National Mathematics Magazine'' (1934-1945.) Doris Schattschneider became the first female editor of ''Mathematics Magazine'' in 1981. .. The MAA gives the Carl B. Allendoerfer Awards annually "for articles of expository excellence" published in ''Mathematics Magazine''. See also *''American Mathematical Mont ...
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From Zero To Infinity
''From Zero to Infinity: What Makes Numbers Interesting'' is a book in popular mathematics and number theory by Constance Reid. It was originally published in 1955 by the Thomas Y. Crowell Company. The fourth edition was published in 1992 by the Mathematical Association of America in their MAA Spectrum series. A K Peters published a fifth "Fiftieth anniversary edition" in 2006. Background Reid was not herself a professional mathematician, but came from a mathematical family that included her sister Julia Robinson and brother-in-law Raphael M. Robinson. She had worked as a schoolteacher, but by the time of the publication of ''From Zero to Infinity'' she was a "housewife and free-lance writer". She became known for her many books about mathematics and mathematicians, aimed at a popular audience, of which this was the first. Reid's interest in number theory was sparked by her sister's use of computers to discover Mersenne primes. She published an article on a closely related top ...
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Popular Mathematics
Popular mathematics is the presentation of mathematics to an aimed general audience. The difference between recreational mathematics and popular mathematics is that recreational mathematics intends to be fun for the mathematical community, and popular mathematics intends to make mathematical knowledge known by the general audience. Some popularization methods are mathematical books which require no mathematical background, and in other cases involves social interaction to raise awareness. There are several reasons to popularize mathematics or promote mathematics, but it is indeed the most difficult academic discipline to popularize. History Research by historians of mathematics has shown the existence of a tradition of popularization dating back at least to the Middle Ages, and we can even consider ''The Sand Reckoner'', in the 3rd century BC, as the first example of a mathematical text intended for a non-mathematician. The popularization of science has accompanied the pr ...
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Constance Reid
Constance Bowman Reid (January 3, 1918 – October 14, 2010) was the author of several biographies of mathematicians and popular books about mathematics. She received several awards for mathematical exposition. She was not a mathematician but came from a mathematical family—one of her sisters was Julia Robinson, and her brother-in-law was Raphael M. Robinson. Background and education Reid was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Ralph Bowers Bowman and Helen (Hall) Bowman. One of her younger sisters was the mathematician Julia Robinson. The family moved to Arizona and then to San Diego when the girls were a few years old. In 1950 she married a law student, Neil D. Reid, with whom she had two children, Julia and Stewart. Reid received a Bachelor of Arts degree from San Diego State University in 1938 and a Master of Education degree from University of California, Berkeley in 1949. She worked as a teacher of English and journalism from 1939 to 1950, and as a fr ...
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The American Mathematical Monthly
''The American Mathematical Monthly'' is a mathematical journal founded by Benjamin Finkel in 1894. It is published ten times each year by Taylor & Francis for the Mathematical Association of America. The ''American Mathematical Monthly'' is an expository journal intended for a wide audience of mathematicians, from undergraduate students to research professionals. Articles are chosen on the basis of their broad interest and reviewed and edited for quality of exposition as well as content. In this the ''American Mathematical Monthly'' fulfills a different role from that of typical mathematical research journals. The ''American Mathematical Monthly'' is the most widely read mathematics journal in the world according to records on JSTOR. Tables of contents with article abstracts from 1997–2010 are availablonline The MAA gives the Lester R. Ford Awards annually to "authors of articles of expository excellence" published in the ''American Mathematical Monthly''. Editors *2022– ...
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Edwin F
The name Edwin means "rich friend". It comes from the Old English elements "ead" (rich, blessed) and "ƿine" (friend). The original Anglo-Saxon form is Eadƿine, which is also found for Anglo-Saxon figures. People * Edwin of Northumbria (died 632 or 633), King of Northumbria and Christian saint * Edwin (son of Edward the Elder) (died 933) * Eadwine of Sussex (died 982), King of Sussex * Eadwine of Abingdon (died 990), Abbot of Abingdon * Edwin, Earl of Mercia (died 1071), brother-in-law of Harold Godwinson (Harold II) *Edwin (director) (born 1978), Indonesian filmmaker * Edwin (musician) (born 1968), Canadian musician * Edwin Abeygunasekera, Sri Lankan Sinhala politician, member of the 1st and 2nd State Council of Ceylon * Edwin Ariyadasa (1922-2021), Sri Lankan Sinhala journalist * Edwin Austin Abbey (1852–1911) British artist * Edwin Eugene Aldrin (born 1930), although he changed it to Buzz Aldrin, American astronaut * Edwin Howard Armstrong (1890–1954), American inve ...
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MIT Press
The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962. History The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT published under its own name a lecture series entitled ''Problems of Atomic Dynamics'' given by the visiting German physicist and later Nobel Prize winner, Max Born. Six years later, MIT's publishing operations were first formally instituted by the creation of an imprint called Technology Press in 1932. This imprint was founded by James R. Killian, Jr., at the time editor of MIT's alumni magazine and later to become MIT president. Technology Press published eight titles independently, then in 1937 entered into an arrangement with John Wiley & Sons in which Wiley took over marketing and editorial responsibilities. In 1962 the association with Wiley came to an end after a further 125 titles had been published. The press acquired its modern name af ...
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