Maths On The Back Of An Envelope

Author : Clifford Swartz
Publisher : Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM
ISBN 13 : 0801881641
Total Pages : 174 pages
Book Rating : 4.40/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Back-of-the-Envelope Physics written by Clifford Swartz and published by Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM. This book was released on 2004-12-01 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From an award-winning teacher, “a delightful and instructive accessory to an introductory physics course” (Physics World). Physicists use “back-of-the-envelope” estimates to check whether or not an idea could possibly be right. In many cases, the approximate solution is all that is needed. This compilation of 101 examples of back-of-the-envelope calculations celebrates a quantitative approach to solving physics problems. Drawing on a lifetime of physics research and nearly three decades as the editor of The Physics Teacher, Clifford Swartz—a winner of two awards from the American Association of Physics Teachers—provides simple, approximate solutions to physics problems that span a broad range of topics. What note do you get when you blow across the top of a Coke bottle? Could you lose weight on a diet of ice cubes? How can a fakir lie on a bed of nails without getting hurt? Does draining water in the northern hemisphere really swirl in a different direction than its counterpart below the equator? In each case, only a few lines of arithmetic and a few natural constants solve a problem to within a few percent. Covering such subjects as astronomy, magnetism, optics, sound, heat, mechanics, waves, and electricity, this book provides a rich source of material for teachers and anyone interested in the physics of everyday life. “This is a book that will help make the study of physics fun and relevant.” —Mark P. Silverman, author of Waves and Grains: Reflections on Light and Learning

Author : Ethan D. Bolker
Publisher : American Mathematical Soc.
ISBN 13 : 147046134X
Total Pages : 342 pages
Book Rating : 4.48/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Common Sense Mathematics: Second Edition written by Ethan D. Bolker and published by American Mathematical Soc.. This book was released on 2021-01-21 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ten years from now, what do you want or expect your students to remember from your course? We realized that in ten years what matters will be how students approach a problem using the tools they carry with them—common sense and common knowledge—not the particular mathematics we chose for the curriculum. Using our text, students work regularly with real data in moderately complex everyday contexts, using mathematics as a tool and common sense as a guide. The focus is on problems suggested by the news of the day and topics that matter to students, like inflation, credit card debt, and loans. We use search engines, calculators, and spreadsheet programs as tools to reduce drudgery, explore patterns, and get information. Technology is an integral part of today's world—this text helps students use it thoughtfully and wisely. This second edition contains revised chapters and additional sections, updated examples and exercises, and complete rewrites of critical material based on feedback from students and teachers who have used this text. Our focus remains the same: to help students to think carefully—and critically—about numerical information in everyday contexts.

Author : Rob Eastaway
Publisher : JR Books Limited
ISBN 13 : 1907532587
Total Pages : 176 pages
Book Rating : 4.80/5 ( download)

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Download or read book How Many Socks Make a Pair? written by Rob Eastaway and published by JR Books Limited. This book was released on 2013-02-18 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIV How many socks make a pair? The answer is not always two. And behind this question lies a world of maths that can be surprising, amusing and even beautiful. Using playing cards, a newspaper, the back of an envelope, a Sudoku, some pennies and of course a pair of socks, Rob Eastaway shows how maths can demonstrate its secret beauties in even the most mundane of everyday objects. If you already like maths youÕll discover plenty of new surprises. And if youÕve never picked up a maths book in your life, this one will change your view of the subject forever. /div

Author : Rob Eastaway
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 000832459X
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.99/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Maths on the Back of an Envelope: Clever ways to (roughly) calculate anything written by Rob Eastaway and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-09-19 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘Another terrific book by Rob Eastaway’ SIMON SINGH ‘A delightfully accessible guide to how to play with numbers’ HANNAH FRY

Author : Lawrence Weinstein
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 069115080X
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.02/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Guesstimation 2.0 written by Lawrence Weinstein and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-30 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Simple and effective techniques for quickly estimating virtually anything Guesstimation 2.0 reveals the simple and effective techniques needed to estimate virtually anything—quickly—and illustrates them using an eclectic array of problems. A stimulating follow-up to Guesstimation, this is the must-have book for anyone preparing for a job interview in technology or finance, where more and more leading businesses test applicants using estimation questions just like these. The ability to guesstimate on your feet is an essential skill to have in today's world, whether you're trying to distinguish between a billion-dollar subsidy and a trillion-dollar stimulus, a megawatt wind turbine and a gigawatt nuclear plant, or parts-per-million and parts-per-billion contaminants. Lawrence Weinstein begins with a concise tutorial on how to solve these kinds of order of magnitude problems, and then invites readers to have a go themselves. The book features dozens of problems along with helpful hints and easy-to-understand solutions. It also includes appendixes containing useful formulas and more. Guesstimation 2.0 shows how to estimate everything from how closely you can orbit a neutron star without being pulled apart by gravity, to the fuel used to transport your food from the farm to the store, to the total length of all toilet paper used in the United States. It also enables readers to answer, once and for all, the most asked environmental question of our day: paper or plastic?

Author : Joseph K. Blitzstein
Publisher : CRC Press
ISBN 13 : 1466575573
Total Pages : 599 pages
Book Rating : 4.78/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Introduction to Probability written by Joseph K. Blitzstein and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2014-07-24 with total page 599 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Developed from celebrated Harvard statistics lectures, Introduction to Probability provides essential language and tools for understanding statistics, randomness, and uncertainty. The book explores a wide variety of applications and examples, ranging from coincidences and paradoxes to Google PageRank and Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). Additional application areas explored include genetics, medicine, computer science, and information theory. The print book version includes a code that provides free access to an eBook version. The authors present the material in an accessible style and motivate concepts using real-world examples. Throughout, they use stories to uncover connections between the fundamental distributions in statistics and conditioning to reduce complicated problems to manageable pieces. The book includes many intuitive explanations, diagrams, and practice problems. Each chapter ends with a section showing how to perform relevant simulations and calculations in R, a free statistical software environment.

Author : Rob Eastaway
Publisher : Portico
ISBN 13 : 1909396621
Total Pages : 239 pages
Book Rating : 4.23/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Why Do Buses Come in Threes? written by Rob Eastaway and published by Portico. This book was released on 2014-04-03 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a foreword by Tim Rice, this book will change the way you see the world. Why is it better to buy a lottery ticket on a Friday? Why are showers always too hot or too cold? And what's the connection between a rugby player taking a conversion and a tourist trying to get the best photograph of Nelson's Column? These and many other fascinating questions are answered in this entertaining and highly informative book, which is ideal for anyone wanting to remind themselves – or discover for the first time – that maths is relevant to almost everything we do. Dating, cooking, travelling by car, gambling and even life-saving techniques have links with intriguing mathematical problems, as you will find explained here. Whether you have a PhD in astrophysics or haven't touched a maths problem since your school days, this book will give you a fresh understanding of the world around you.

Author : Sanjoy Mahajan
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262265591
Total Pages : 152 pages
Book Rating : 4.91/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Street-Fighting Mathematics written by Sanjoy Mahajan and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2010-03-05 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An antidote to mathematical rigor mortis, teaching how to guess answers without needing a proof or an exact calculation. In problem solving, as in street fighting, rules are for fools: do whatever works—don't just stand there! Yet we often fear an unjustified leap even though it may land us on a correct result. Traditional mathematics teaching is largely about solving exactly stated problems exactly, yet life often hands us partly defined problems needing only moderately accurate solutions. This engaging book is an antidote to the rigor mortis brought on by too much mathematical rigor, teaching us how to guess answers without needing a proof or an exact calculation. In Street-Fighting Mathematics, Sanjoy Mahajan builds, sharpens, and demonstrates tools for educated guessing and down-and-dirty, opportunistic problem solving across diverse fields of knowledge—from mathematics to management. Mahajan describes six tools: dimensional analysis, easy cases, lumping, picture proofs, successive approximation, and reasoning by analogy. Illustrating each tool with numerous examples, he carefully separates the tool—the general principle—from the particular application so that the reader can most easily grasp the tool itself to use on problems of particular interest. Street-Fighting Mathematics grew out of a short course taught by the author at MIT for students ranging from first-year undergraduates to graduate students ready for careers in physics, mathematics, management, electrical engineering, computer science, and biology. They benefited from an approach that avoided rigor and taught them how to use mathematics to solve real problems. Street-Fighting Mathematics will appear in print and online under a Creative Commons Noncommercial Share Alike license.

Author : Donald E. Knuth
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780883850633
Total Pages : 132 pages
Book Rating : 4.3X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mathematical Writing written by Donald E. Knuth and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book will help those wishing to teach a course in technical writing, or who wish to write themselves.

Author : Rob Eastaway
Publisher : Portico
ISBN 13 : 1911622749
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.41/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Hidden Mathematics of Sport written by Rob Eastaway and published by Portico. This book was released on 2021-06-10 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fascinating book explores the mathematics involved in all your favourite sports. The Hidden Mathematics of Sport takes a unique and fascinating look at sport by exploring the mathematics behind the action. You'll discover the best tactics for taking a penalty, the pros and cons of being a consistent golfer, the surprising connection between American football and cricket, the quirky history of league tables, the unusual location of England's earliest 'football' matches and how to avoid marathon tennis matches. Whatever your sporting interests, from boxing to figure skating, from rugby to horse racing, you will find plenty to absorb and amuse you in this insightful book. Word count: 35,000 words