One Two Three . . . Infinity: Facts and Speculations of Science
One Two Three... Infinity, subtitled Facts and Speculations of Science, was originally written by George Gamow in 1947 and then revised somewhat in 1961 (unfortunately, George Gamow died in 1968 and it was the last revision). It's an amazing tour of some of the more interesting bits of physics, with a bit of mathematics and biology thrown in, covering in some depth many separate topics in under 350 pages.
Satan, Cantor, And Infinity and Other Mind-Boggling Puzzles
The author of What Is the Name of This Book? presents a compilation of more than two hundred challenging new logic puzzles--ranging from simple brainteasers to complex mathematical paradoxes.
An examination of Infinity — in history and science — with excursions into literature and philosophy, written by one of the most successful writers of popular science. Infinity is surely the strangest idea that humans have ever thought. Where did it come from and what is it telling us about our Universe? Can there actually be infinities? Or is infinity just a label for something that is never reached, no matter how long you go on counting?Can you do an infinite number of things in a finite amount of time?Is the universe infinite?
The Art of the Infinite: The Pleasures of Mathematics
Robert Kaplan, writing together with his
wife Ellen Kaplan, once again takes us on a witty, literate, and
accessible tour of the world of mathematics. Where The Nothing That Is
looked at math through the lens of zero, The Art of the Infinite
takes infinity, in its countless guises, as a touchstone for
understanding mathematical thinking. Tracing a path from Pythagoras,
whose great Theorem led inexorably to a discovery that his followers
tried in vain to keep secret (the existence of irrational numbers);
through Descartes and Leibniz; to the brilliant, haunted Georg Cantor,
who proved that infinity can come in different sizes, the Kaplans show
how the attempt to grasp the ungraspable embodies the essence of
mathematics ...
