For those fascinated by the abstract universe of mathematics, David Gale' s columns in
The Mathematical
Intelligencer
have been a prime source of entertainment. Here Gale' s columns are collected for the first time in book form. Encouraged by the magazine' s editor, Sheldon Axler, to write on whatever pleased him, Gale ranged far and wide across the field of mathematics but frequently returned to favorite themes: triangles, tilings, the mysterious properties of sequences given by simple recursions, games and paradoxes, and the particular automaton that gives this collection its title, the " automatic ant" . The level is suitable for those with some familiarity with mathematical ideas, but great sophistication is not needed.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
1 Simple Sequences with Puzzling Properties. - 2 Probability Paradoxes. - 3 Historic Conjectures: More Sequence Mysteries. - 4 Privacy-Preserving Protocols. - 5 Surprising Shuffles. - 6 Hundreds of New Theorems in a Two-Thousand-Year-Old Subject: Where Will It End? . - 7 Pop Math and Protocols. - 8 Six Variations on the Variational Method. - 9 Tiling a Torus: Cutting a Cake. - 10 The Automatic Ant: Compassless Constructions. - 11 Games: Real, Complex, Imaginary. - 12 Coin Weighing: Square Squaring. - 13 The Return of the Ant and the Jeep. - 14 Go. - 15 More Paradoxes. Knowledge Games. - 16 Triangles and Computers. - 17 Packing Tripods. - 18 Further Travels with My Ant. - 19 The Shoelace Problem. - 20 Triangles and Proofs. - 21 Polyominoes. - 22 A Pattern Problem, A Probability Paradox, and A Pretty Proof. - 23 The Sun, the Moon, and Mathematics. - 24 In Praise of Numberlessness. - Appendix 1 A Curious Nim-Type Game. - Appendix 2 The Jeep Once More or Jeeper by the Dozen. - Appendix 3 Nineteen Problems in Elementary Geometry (by Armando Machado). - Appendix 4 The Truth and Nothing But the Truth.
