Product Details
Group Theory in the Bedroom, and Other Mathematical Diversions

Group Theory in the Bedroom, and Other Mathematical Diversions
By Brian Hayes

List Price: $15.00
Price: $10.20 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com

35 new or used available from $4.83

Average customer review:

Product Description

Brian Hayes is one of the most accomplished essayists active today—a claim supported not only by his prolific and continuing high-quality output but also by such honors as the National Magazine Award for his commemorative Y2K essay titled “Clock of Ages,” published in the November/December 1999 issue of The Sciences magazine. (The also-rans that year included Tom Wolfe, Verlyn Klinkenborg, and Oliver Sacks.) Hayes’s work in this genre has also appeared in such anthologies as The Best American Magazine Writing, The Best American Science and Nature Writing, and The Norton Reader. Here he offers us a selection of his most memorable and accessible pieces—including “Clock of Ages”—embellishing them with an overall, scene-setting preface, reconfigured illustrations, and a refreshingly self-critical “Afterthoughts” section appended to each essay.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #43416 in Books
  • Published on: 2009-04-14
  • Released on: 2009-04-14
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 288 pages

Features

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In charming prose that more or less makes up for the relative lack of rigor in many of his explorations, about which Hayes is refreshingly honest (I see no reason to doubt this assumption, at least as an approximation, but I also have no evidence to support it), science and technology journalist Hayes (Infrastructure) explains the engineering and arithmetic of clocks and gears, wracks his brain over questions of how best to flip a mattress and visits the prettiest wrong idea in all of twentieth-century science... the vision of piglets suckling on messenger RNA. As he examines huge calculating tables rendered obsolete by computers, Hayes cannot help wondering which of my labors will appear equally quaint and pathetic to some future reader. This observation is echoed by the afterwords where Hayes addresses pointed questions and observations from readers, displaying a brave willingness to admit error and acknowledge advances made since these pieces were first published in the Sciences and American Scientist. Present-day readers would do best to approach this collection more for its literary merits than its revelation of obscure history or cutting-edge mathematical theory. 41 b&w illus. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

“If you ever lie awake pondering the complexities of the universe, you may have a soul buddy in Brian Hayes.” —New Scientist
 
“Hayes is an assured and genial guide through the often thorny wilds of computation and mathematics.” —The Star-Tribune (Minneapolis–St. Paul)
 
“Group Theory in the Bedroom and Other Mathematical Diversions is a marvelous collection of thought-provoking essays that both inform and entertain. You’ll be amazed by the things you’ll discover in these stories.” —Ron Graham, professor of mathematics, computer science and engineering, University of California, San Diego, former chief scientist of AT&T, and past president of the American Mathematical Society, the Mathematical Association of America and the International Jugglers Association
 
“Brian Hayes’s book is a refreshing collection of superb mathematical essays. Ranging from choosing up sides to choosing names, the topics are intriguingly nonstandard. Moreover, the writing is clean, the explanations are pellucid, and the effect on the reader is exhilarating. First-rate all the way through.” —John Allen Paulos, author of Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences and the forthcoming Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up
 
"Every essay in this book is a gem of science writing on its highest level—accurate, up to date, brimming with surprising information, deep insights, and a profound love of mathematics. Its scope is awesome. Topics include a fantastic clock in Strasbourg, randomness, poverty, war, geology, genetics, gear ratios, partitions, nomenclature, group theory, and the ambiguity of the equals sign. There isn't a dull page in the book." —Martin Gardner, author of The Colossal Book of Short Puzzles and Problems and more than 60 other titles

About the Author

Brian Hayes writes the “Computing Science” column for American Scientist magazine, where he is a former editor in chief. His previous book is Infrastructure: A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape.

Customer Reviews

Extremely Interesting Even for Math-a-phobics5
If you liked the book "Freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything" (which I loved), there is a good chance you will like this one too. The author may have screwed-up giving it the title he did and by adding "and Other Mathematical Diversions", as it may put off or scare off a lot of people who would find it enjoyable. One would be hard pressed to find a mathematical equation anywhere in the book.

Take for instance the first chapter, "Clock of Ages", on the astronomical clock located in the Strasbourg Cathedral, in the city of Strasbourg, Alsace. Though the current version of the clock dates from 1843, not only was it designed to be Y2K compliant, it is also Y10K functional, designed to directly display the current year up to 9999 and the only revision needed to make it correct for subsequent years would be to paint the number "1" to the left of the display. It will continue to display such events as the correct date for Easter even in the year 19999 (Easter falls on April 3rd in 11842). Though solely a mechanical device, the gears of the clock were designed to be accurate to an error of less than one second per century. There is a gear in the clock that turns only once every 2,500 years and the celestial sphere out in front of the clock will complete one full precessional cycle after the passage of 25,806 years.

After his discussion of the beauty of the design of this clock, the author then takes up a philosophical discussion of time, asking if anyone will still care what date Easter will be in 11842, or even if we will still be counting in years of the Common Era.

The second chapter, "Follow the Money", demonstrates how through even an entirely random process, wealth tends to become concentrated in the hands of a few people, even in a fair system.

The remaining chapters are similarly varied and all are interesting.

A great book with a wide variety of interesting subjects and an engaging, erudite writing style.

Excellent Book on Perspective and Framing Problems5
This is an excellent collection of thought-provoking essays related to mathematics. Brian Hayes covers a wide array of topics through the lens of mathematics in an engaging, thought-provoking and entertaining manner.

The essays contained in this book, addressing topics such as the genetic code, the Continental Divide and randomness, among other topics, vary widely in subject matter, but share a common underlying theme. Specifically, each of these essays asks the reader to examine "things," such as the genetic code, from a unique perspective. Moreover, Hayes pulls the reader through a thoughtful and insightful problem framing approach that has broad applications across many disciplines.

I found the content and style across each essay to be first-rate. This book teaches the reader many things...most importantly, I feel it offers rare insight into the power of shifting perspective and framing problems.

Math Applied To Some Everyday Things5
This delightful book takes a playful look at some interesting and unusual ways that math can be applied. Much more than puzzles, each of the 12 chapters examine a particular everyday object or action in ways that are easy to understand and give more depth to some of the discoveries made along the way. An easy and enjoyable read for the curious of all ages. Complemented by an extensive section for those who want to do a deeper dive on the magic and mystery of how math can explain how some everyday things work.