About this science book
Surreal Numbers : How Two Ex-students Turned on to Pure Mathematics and Found Total Happiness : a Mathematical Novelette by Donald Ervin Knuth is a science book available to read on EtoBox.
<p>Nearly 30 years ago, John Horton Conway introduced a new way to construct numbers. Donald E. Knuth, in appreciation of this revolutionary system, took a week off from work on The Art of Computer Programming to write an introduction to Conway's method. Never content with the ordinary, Knuth wrote this introduction as a work of fiction—a novelette. If not a steamy romance, the book nonetheless shows how a young couple turned on to pure mathematics and found total happiness.</p> <p>The book's primary aim, Knuth explains in a postscript, is not so much to teach Conway's theory as "to teach how one might go about developing such a theory." He continues: "Therefore, as the two characters in this book gradually explore and build up Conway's number system, I have recorded their false starts and frustrations as well as their good ideas. I wanted to give a reasonably faithful portrayal of the important principles, techniques, joys, passions, and philosophy of mathematics, so I wrote the story as I was actually doing the research myself."... It is an astonishing feat of legerdemain. An empty hat rests on a table made of a few axioms of standard set theory. Conway waves two simple rules in
It is typically read by self-directed learners exploring a subject in depth.
Common subject areas: history, science, philosophy, social sciences.
- Author
- Donald Ervin Knuth
- Publisher
- Addison-Wesley Professional
- Published
- 1974
- Language
- EN
- ISBN
- 9780201038125
- Category
- science
- Subjects
- Mathematics, Fiction, Science