Fantasia MathematicaClifton Fadiman Clifton Fadiman's classic collection of mathematical stories, essays and anecdotes first published in 1958, is now back in print. Ranging from the poignant to the comical to the surreal, these selections include writing by Aldous Huxley, Martin Gardner, H.G. Wells, George Gamow, G.H. Hardy, Plato, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and many others. Humorous and mysterious, this collection will please mathematicians and everyone else who loves a good story full of stimulating ideas. In this intriguing collection of stories we learn of the young mathematician who chases his fiancee into the fourth dimension, how a group of Australian soldier's lives were saved by a lesson in basic topology, and of Mephisto's search for mathematical truth. Any interested reader will be amused, beguiled -- and perhaps even slightly instructed -- by this wonderfully diverse collection of writing. Clifton Fadiman's prolific career as an essayist, critic, anthologist, and radio show host has spanned the last five decades. His books include The Lifetime Reading Plan and a collection of essays, Party of One. He served for many years on the board of editors of the Book-of-the-Month Club. |
Contents
Young Archimedes | 1 |
Pythagoras and the Psychoanalyst | 33 |
Mother and the Decimal Point | 35 |
Jurgen Proves It by Mathematics | 38 |
Peter Learns Arithmetic | 44 |
Socrates and the Slave | 47 |
The Death of Archimedes | 55 |
IMAGINARIES | 59 |
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star | 267 |
Mathematical Love | 268 |
The Circle | 269 |
The Circle and the Square | 270 |
Euclid Alone Has Looked on Beauty Bare | 271 |
Euclid | 272 |
To Think That Two and Two Are Four | 273 |
The Uses of Mathematics | 274 |
The Devil and Simon Flagg | 61 |
And He Built a Crooked House | 68 |
Inflexible Logic | 89 |
NoSided Professor | 97 |
Superiority | 108 |
The Mathematical Voodoo | 119 |
Expedition | 136 |
The Captured CrossSection | 138 |
A Bolts and the Moebius Strip | 153 |
God and the Machine | 169 |
The Tachypomp | 180 |
The Island of Five Colors | 194 |
The Last Magician | 209 |
A Subway Named Moebius | 220 |
The Universal Library | 235 |
Postscript to The Universal Library | 242 |
John Joness Dollar | 246 |
FRACTIONS | 257 |
A New Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens | 259 |
The Unfortunate Topologist | 264 |
There Once Was a Breathy Baboon | 265 |
Yet What Are All | 266 |
Arithmetic | 275 |
Threes To Be Sung by Niels Bohr | 276 |
Plane Geometry | 277 |
He Thought He Saw Electrons Swift | 279 |
Fearsome Fable | 280 |
Bertrand Russells Dream | 281 |
For All Practical Purposes | 282 |
A Nightmare | 283 |
An Infinity of Guests | 284 |
No Power on Earth | 286 |
x+1 | 287 |
The Receptive Bosom | 288 |
Leinbachs Proof | 289 |
Problem | 290 |
A Letter to Tennyson | 291 |
A Fable | 292 |
There Was a Young Man from Trinity | 293 |
There Was an Old Man Who Said Do | 294 |
Relativity | 295 |
There Was a Young Fellow Named Fisk | 296 |
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Common terms and phrases
Aguz Alma Archimedes asked Aydah Bailey Bainbridge began belt Burkel child chimpanzees color course cube devil Dixon doll door Duneen eyes face feet figure Finchell floor four four-color theorem fourth dimension G. H. HARDY George Gamow Guido hand happened head Heagey Homer Bailey Humbolt inside John Jones Jurgen Klein bottle looked machine MacTate Martin Gardner mathe mathematician mathematics mile mind minutes Moebius Moebius strip move never NIGEL BALCHIN no-sided paint paper Philistia plane problem Professor Mallard pump Ransom remember Reprinted by permission Rivarol Robin Scouler seemed Sheila shook side Signora Bondi Simon Slapenarski smiled SOCRATES space square stared stood stopped story suddenly surface switch talk Teal tell tesseract theorem thing thought tion took topologist topology tractor train Tupelo turned voice Wallhausen What's Whyte Willy Ley window