A comprehensive look at four of the most famous problems in mathematicsTales of Impossibility recounts the intriguing story of the renowned problems of antiquity, four of the most famous and studied questions in the history of mathematics. First posed by the ancient Greeks, these compass and straightedge problems--squaring the circle, trisecting an angle, doubling the cube, and inscribing regular polygons in a circle--have served as ever-present muses...

"A wide-ranging history of the intellectual developments that produced the modern idea of the algorithm. Bringing together the histories of mathematics, computer science, and linguistic thought, Language and the Rise of the Algorithm reveals how recent developments in artificial intelligence are reopening an issue that troubled mathematicians long before the computer age. How do you draw the line between computational rules and the complexities of...

A Fox Sports personality and former NFL player describes his life, including growing up in Compton, attending Columbia University, and making it to the NFL, and discusses controversial issues within the game of football. Marcellus Wiley has never had a problem expressing his opinion, whether it was growing up in Compton with a football tucked under his arm, or going to college at Columbia University, where he learned to survive Advanced Calculus...

Traces the period between Copernicus's theory about the sun's location at the center of the universe through the early days of atomic theory, offering introductory portraits of such contributors as Giordano Bruno, Galileo, and Isaac Newton.