This "fun, brain-twisting book . . . will make you think" as it
explores more than 75 paradoxes in mathematics, philosophy, physics, and
the social sciences (Sean Carroll, New York Times-bestselling author
of Something Deeply Hidden)
Paradox is a sophisticated kind of magic trick. A magician's purpose is
to create the appearance of impossibility, to pull a rabbit from an
empty hat. Yet paradox doesn't require tangibles, like rabbits or hats.
Paradox works in the abstract, with words and concepts and symbols, to
create the illusion of contradiction. There are no contradictions in
reality, but there can appear to be. In Sleight of Mind, Matt Cook and
a few collaborators dive deeply into more than 75 paradoxes in
mathematics, physics, philosophy, and the social sciences. As each
paradox is discussed and resolved, Cook helps readers discover the
meaning of knowledge and the proper formation of concepts--and how
reason can dispel the illusion of contradiction.
The journey begins with "a most ingenious paradox" from Gilbert and
Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance. Readers will then travel from Ancient
Greece to cutting-edge laboratories, encounter infinity and its
different sizes, and discover mathematical impossibilities inherent in
elections. They will tackle conundrums in probability, induction,
geometry, and game theory; perform "supertasks"; build apparent
perpetual motion machines; meet twins living in different millennia;
explore the strange quantum world--and much more.
