Math--the application of reasonable logic to reasonable
assumptions--usually produces reasonable results. But sometimes math
generates astonishing paradoxes--conclusions that seem completely
unreasonable or just plain impossible but that are nevertheless
demonstrably true. Did you know that a losing sports team can become a
winning one by adding worse players than its opponents? Or that the
thirteenth of the month is more likely to be a Friday than any other
day? Or that cones can roll unaided uphill? In Nonplussed!--a
delightfully eclectic collection of paradoxes from many different areas
of math--popular-math writer Julian Havil reveals the math that shows
the truth of these and many other unbelievable ideas.
Nonplussed! pays special attention to problems from probability and
statistics, areas where intuition can easily be wrong. These problems
include the vagaries of tennis scoring, what can be deduced from tossing
a needle, and disadvantageous games that form winning combinations.
Other chapters address everything from the historically important
Torricelli's Trumpet to the mind-warping implications of objects that
live on high dimensions. Readers learn about the colorful history and
people associated with many of these problems in addition to their
mathematical proofs.
Nonplussed! will appeal to anyone with a calculus background who
enjoys popular math books or puzzles.
