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|  Do I Count?: Stories from MathematicsPresents amusing and fascinating stories from mathematics at a level suitable for general readers.
By: CRC Press Written by top scientist and engaging storyteller Günter M. Ziegler and translated by Thomas von Foerster, the book presents mathematics and mathematicians in a manner that you have not previously encountered. It guides you on a scenic tour through the field, pointing out which beds were useful in constructing which theorems and which notebooks list the prizes for solving particular problems. Forgoing esoteric areas, the text relates mathematics to celebrities, history, travel, politics, science and technology, weather, clever puzzles, and the future. Can bees count? Is 13 bad luck? Are there equations for everything? What’s the real practical value of the Pythagorean Theorem? Are there Sudoku puzzles with fewer than 17 entries and just one solution? Where and how do mathematicians work? Who invented proofs and why do we need them? Why is there no Nobel Prize for mathematics? What kind of life did Paul Erdos lead? Find out the answers to these and other questions in this entertaining book of stories. You’ll see that everyone counts, but no computation is needed. Praise "In 2008, Günter M. Ziegler won Germany’s highest distinction for the communication of science to the general public, the Communicator Award. The award panel honoured a young and outstanding mathematician for his special ability to communicate results in his field in a fresh and innovative way. His new book, Do I Count?, reaffirms this ability to reveal the central role and beauty of mathematics, and provides excellent and inspiring reading." —Dr. Eva-Maria Streier, Director New York Office, German Research Foundation (DFG) "In a book filled with humor, fascinating stories, and graceful and imaginative writing, Günter Ziegler unlocks the secrets of what mathematicians do and how they go about doing it. Along the way, he touches on the making of mathematics as an analogue of the making of love, and talks about such things as number superstitions, prime numbers old and new, interesting mathematical characters dead and alive, and some intriguing mathematical questions, questions that can be understood by virtually anyone, but which mathematicians are still trying to answer. This is a book that everyone can enjoy—from someone who failed high school geometry to the practicing mathematician. Ziegler’s knowledge about the ins and outs of mathematics is inexhaustible." —Jacob E. Goodman, Founding Editor, Discrete & Computational Geometry "For Ziegler, it’s a fact that doing math is a tough, sometimes dirty, business, but also brings incredible amounts of fun." —Der Tagesspiegel "… [the author] succeeds, in his own way, to give an idea of what drives mathematicians, what fascinates them, and where they develop their research. The portraits of colleagues whom he knows personally and whom he describes engagingly and animatedly contribute to this substantially." —Wolfgang Blum, Sueddeutsche Zeitung "‘Caution, formulas,’ Ziegler warns us and advises not to take everything that’s expressed as a formula as true, rather, to cheerfully and carefully look for errors. This book invites the reader to look at numbers skeptically, examine statistics carefully, and check over other people’s calculations. The author offers this encouragement, ‘We can’t all be below average in mathematics.’" —Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung "Many consider mathematics as difficult. But it is precisely that which makes it interesting for Günter Ziegler, professor of mathematics and recipient of many awards, … who is here starting a ‘charm offensive’ for his discipline. His blazing argument for the field is spiced with anecdotes and true stories, bringing to the fore its multiplicity and the variety of the people who devote themselves to it." —c’t About the Author Günter M. Ziegler is a MATHEON professor at Freie Universität Berlin. Dr. Ziegler is a member of the executive board of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, and a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. His honors include the Leibniz Prize from the German Research Foundation DFG, the Chauvenet Prize from the Mathematical Association of America, and the Communicator Award from DFG and Stifterverband. His research interests connect discrete and computational geometry (especially polytopes), algebraic and topological methods in combinatorics, discrete mathematics, and the theory of linear and integer programming. He earned a Ph.D. from MIT. For More Information Please Visit: http://www.crcpress.com/ End
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