DEVLIN

Why is math so hard? And why, despite this difficulty, are some people so good at it? If there’s some inborn capacity for mathematical thinking—which there must be, otherwise no one could

"Mathematics: The New Golden Age" offers a glimpse of the extraordinary vistas and bizarre universes opened up by contemporary mathematicians: Hilbert's tenth problem and the four-color theorem, Gauss

"The great book of nature," said Galileo, "can be read only by those who know the language in which it was written. And this language is mathematics." In The Language of Mathematics, award-winning au

Why do leopards grow spots when tigers grow stripes? Is the universe round, square, or some other shape? How do the dimples in a golf ball give it greater lift? Is there such a thing as a public mood?

Do you expect to find articles about mathematics in your daily newspaper? If you are a reader of The Guardian you do, or at least you did during the second half of the 1980s. This volume collects many

Intelligence can be characterised both as the ability to absorb and process information and as the ability to reason. Humans and other animals have both of these abilities to a greater or lesser degree, but the search for artificial intelligence has been hampered by our inability to create a theory that covers both of these characteristics. In this provocative and ground-breaking book, Professor Keith Devlin argues that to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of intelligence and knowledge acquisition, we must broaden our concept of logic. For these purposes, Devlin introduces the concept of the infon, a quantum of information, and merges it with situations, a mathematical construction generalising the notion of sets developed by Barwise and Perry at Stanford University in order to study the meaning of natural languages. He develops and describes the theory here in general and intuitive terms, and discusses its relevance to a variety of concerns such as artificial intelligence, c

Why is stitch-and-glue boatbuilding so popular?Any number of construction methods will produce a beautiful boat. But for the backyard builder with limited experience and a tight budget, the choice is

This text covers the parts of contemporary set theory relevant to other areas of pure mathematics. After a review of "naive" set theory, it develops the Zermelo-Fraenkel axioms of the theory before di

Intelligence can be characterised both as the ability to absorb and process information and as the ability to reason. Humans and other animals have both of these abilities to a greater or lesser degree, but the search for artificial intelligence has been hampered by our inability to create a theory that covers both of these characteristics. In this provocative and ground-breaking book, Professor Keith Devlin argues that to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of intelligence and knowledge acquisition, we must broaden our concept of logic. For these purposes, Devlin introduces the concept of the infon, a quantum of information, and merges it with situations, a mathematical construction generalising the notion of sets developed by Barwise and Perry at Stanford University in order to study the meaning of natural languages. He develops and describes the theory here in general and intuitive terms, and discusses its relevance to a variety of concerns such as artificial intelligence, c

This intriguing book examines popular religion, traditional medicine, witchcraft, apparitions, demonology, and magic in nineteenth-century rural France. Devlin demonstrates that many of the impulses a

Her best friend, Olivia, is missing! Zoey Hathaway calls her mom and amateur sleuth, Miranda, to come to Boston and help them find her. But before they can get her back, Miranda goes missing! A frant