Mathematical Foundations
-
The Language Lover’s Puzzle Book: Lexical perplexities and cracking conundrums from across the globe
From the bestselling author of Alex’s Adventures in Numberland and Can You Solve My Problems? comes a fascinating, hugely entertaining collection of puzzles for crossword addicts and language-lovers of all stripes.
‘The only puzzle book I’ve seen that manages to befuddle both sides of the brain at the same time.’
DARA Ó BRIAIN‘Such fun, full of unexpected ideas and charmingly written.’
TIM HARFORDThe Language Lover’s Puzzle Book is a book of more than 100 surprising and entertaining puzzles that celebrate the amazing diversity of the world of words and language.
Featuring a huge variety of ancient, modern and even invented languages, this collection of problems will introduce you to unusual alphabets and scripts, curious vocabularies and phonologies, and global variations in simple behaviours like counting, telling the time, and naming children.
Whether you are a crossword solver, a code-breaker or a Scrabble addict, these puzzles are guaranteed to twist your tongue and sharpen your mind.
‘Alex Bellos is a dazzling polymath whose cleverness and ingenuity are on full display in this utterly brilliant and original collection of linguistic puzzles. This book is destined to be a classic for puzzle lovers.’
JOSHUA FOER, co-founder of Atlas Obscura and author Moonwalking with Einstein‘An irresistible linguistic workout ― challenging and deeply satisfying.’
GASTON DORREN, author of Lingo and Babel‘For all the language and puzzle fans in your life!’ GRETCHEN McCULLOCH
‘A cornucopia of ingenious and insightful challenges.’ DAVID CRYSTAL
‘This compendium of puzzles is a great idea.’ MICHAEL ROSEN
‘You’ll love what Alex Bellos has done here.’ GYLES BRANDRETH
‘Tantalisting.’ THE ECONOMIST
‘The perfect way to pass the time.’ BBC SCIENCE FOCUSRead more
£8.70£9.50 -
The Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic
Early in his rise to enlightenment, man invented a concept that has since been variously viewed as a vice, a crime, a business, a pleasure, a type of magic, a disease, a folly, a weakness, a form of sexual substitution, an expression of the human instinct. He invented gambling. Recent advances in the field, particularly Parrondo’s paradox, have triggered a surge of interest in the statistical and mathematical theory behind gambling. This interest was acknowledge in the motion picture, ’21’ inspired by the true story of the MIT students who mastered the art of card counting to reap millions from the Vegas casinos. Richard Epstein’s classic book on gambling and its mathematical analysis covers the full range of games from penny matching to blackjack, from Tic-Tac-Toe to the stock market (including Edward Thorp’s warrant-hedging analysis). He even considers whether statistical inference can shed light on the study of paranormal phenomena. Epstein is witty and insightful, a pleasure to dip into and read and rewarding to study. The book is written at a fairly sophisticated mathematical level; this is not ‘Gambling for Dummies’ or ‘How To Beat The Odds Without Really Trying’ A background in upper-level undergraduate mathematics is helpful for understanding this work.Read more
£29.40
