50 Visions of Mathematics

Sam Parc studied mathematics and engineering in the UK, Germany and Australia and has previously worked at the Universities of Bath, Bristol, Cambridge, Manchester and Newcastle and at Imperial College London. She works for the UK's Institute of Mathematics and its Applications where she provides a passion for popularising mathematics. Her previous work has involved writing a mathematical agony aunt column in a provincial newspaper and maintaining a popular online mathematical magazine. She lives in Southend-on-Sea with her large family and dog, Benji. This is her first book.

• 1. What's the problem with mathematics? ; 2. The mathematics of messages ; 3. Decathlon: The art of scoring points ; 4. Queen Dido and the mathematics of the extreme ; 5. Can strings tie things together? ; 6. Grooves and knuckleballs ; 7. Pigs didn't fly but swine flu ; 8. Bill Tutte: Unsung Bletchley hero ; 9. What's the use of a quadratic equation? ; 10. Tony Hilton Royle Skyrme ; 11. The mathematics of obesity ; 12. It's a small world really ; 13. How does mathematics help at a murder scene? ; 14. Mathematics: The language of the universe ; 15. The troublesome geometry of CAT scanning ; 16. The mathematics of sports gambling ; Pythagoras's Theorem: a2 ; 17. A conversation with Freeman Dyson ; 18. A glass of bubbly ; 19. The influenza virus: It's all in the packaging ; 20. Mathematicians at the movies: Sherlock Holmes vs Professor Moriarty ; 21. Solving the Bristol bridge problem ; 22. All ravens are black: Puzzles and paradoxes in probability and statistics ; 23. The Tower of Hanoi: Where mathematics meets psychology ; 24. Career: A sample path ; 25. Sweets in the jar ; 26. Mary Cartwright ; 27. The fallibility of mathematics ; 28. Anecdotes of Dr Barrow ; 29. Finding Apollo ; 30. The golden ratio in astronomy and astrophysics ; 31. The high-power hypar ; 32. This is not a carrot: Paraconsistent mathematics ; 33. The mystery of Groombridge Place ; Pythagoras's Theorem: b2 ; 34. Mysterious number 6174 ; 35. Percolating possibilities ; 36. Milestones on a non-Euclidean journey ; 37. Simpson's rule ; 38. Risking your life ; 39. Networks and illusions ; 40. Emmy Noether: Against the odds ; 41. Of catastrophes and creodes: How maths benefits from collaboration with other fields ; 42. Conic section hide and seek ; 43. Sir James Lighthill: A life in waves ; 44. Fail safe or fail dangerous ; 45. Leapfrogging into the future: How child's play is at the heart of weather and climate models ; 46. Motorway mathematics ; 47. The philosophy of applied mathematics ; 48. Mighty Morphogenesis ; 49. Called to the barcode ; 50. Roughly fifty-fifty? ; Pythagoras's Theorem: c2

Motorways; Sherlock Holmes; networks; mysterious numbers; sweets; champagne; interviews; mathematical poetry; ravens and even The Simpsons - this book has them all and more! Don't miss it!