How to Free Your Inner Mathematician: Notes on Mathematics and Life

Description

How to Free Your Inner Mathematician: Notes on Mathematics and Life offers readers guidance in managing the fear, freedom, frustration, and joy that often accompany calls to think mathematically. With practical insight and years of award-winning mathematics teaching experience, D'Agostino offers more than 300 hand-drawn sketches alongside accessible descriptions of fractals, symmetry, fuzzy logic, knot theory, Penrose patterns, infinity, the Twin Prime Conjecture, Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, Fermat's Last Theorem, and other intriguing mathematical topics. Readers are encouraged to embrace change, proceed at their own pace, mix up their routines, resist comparison, have faith, fail more often, look for beauty, exercise their imaginations, and define success for themselves. Mathematics students and enthusiasts will learn advice for fostering courage on their journey regardless of age or mathematical background. How to Free Your Inner Mathematician delivers not only engaging mathematical content but provides reassurance that mathematical success has more to do with curiosity and drive than innate aptitude. Title_Pages Praise_for_How_to_Free_Your_Inner_Mathematician Dedication Acknowledgments Introduction Mix_up_your_routine_as_cicadas_with_prime_number_cycles Grow_in_accessible_directions_like_Voronoi_diagrams Rely_on_your_reasoning_abilities_because_folded_paper_may_reach_the_moon Define_success_for_yourself_given_Arrows_Impossibility_Theorem Reach_for_the_stars_just_like_Katherine_Johnson Find_the_right_match_as_with_binary_numbers_and_computers Act_natural_because_of_Benfords_Law Resist_comparison_because_of_chaos_theory Look_all_around_as_Archimedes_did_in_life Walk_through_the_problem_as_on_the_Konigsberg_bridges Untangle_problems_with_knot_theory Consider_all_options_as_the_shortest_path_between_two_points_is_not_always_straight Look_for_beauty_because_of_Fibonacci_numbers Divide_and_conquer_just_like_Riemann_sums_in_calculus Embrace_change_considering_nonEuclidean_geometry Pursue_an_easier_approach_considering_the_Pigeonhole_Principle Make_an_educated_guess_like_Kepler_with_his_SpherePacking_Conjecture Proceed_at_your_own_pace_because_of_terminal_velocity Pay_attention_to_details_as_Earth_is_an_oblate_spheroid Join_the_community_with_Hilberts_twentythree_problems Search_for_likeminded_math_friends_because_of_the_Twin_Prime_Conjecture Abandon_perfectionism_because_of_the_Hairy_Ball_Theorem Enjoy_the_pursuit_as_Andrew_Wiles_did_with_Fermats_Last_Theorem Design_your_own_pattern_because_of_the_Penrose_Patterns Keep_it_simple_whenever_possible_since_09991 Change_your_perspective_with_Vivianis_Theorem Explore_on_a_Mobius_strip Be_contradictory_because_of_the_infinitude_of_primes Cooperate_when_possible_because_of_game_theory Consider_the_less_traveled_path_because_of_the_Jordan_Curve_Theorem Investigate_because_of_the_golden_rectangle Be_okay_with_small_steps_as_the_harmonic_series_grows_without_bound Work_efficiently_like_bacteriophages_with_icosahedral_symmetry Find_balance_as_in_coding_theory Draw_a_picture_as_in_proofs_without_words Incorporate_nuance_because_of_fuzzy_logic Be_grateful_when_a_solution_exists_because_of_Brouwers_Fixed_Point_Theorem Update_your_understanding_with_Bayesian_statistics Keep_an_open_mind_because_imaginary_numbers_exist Appreciate_the_process_by_taking_a_random_walk Fail_more_often_just_like_Albert_Einstein_did_with_Emc2 Get_disoriented_on_a_Klein_bottle Go_outside_your_realm_of_experience_on_a_hypercube Follow_your_curiosity_along_a_spacefilling_curve Exercise_your_imagination_with_fractional_dimensions Proceed_with_care_because_some_infinities_are_larger_than_others Conclusion Solutions Bibliography Index