A Mathematical Mystery Tour: Discovering the

Praise for A. K. Dewdney Yes, We Have No Neutrons "We need more books like this-especially if they're this much fun to read." -Wired "Dewdney manages to make this catalog of error entertaining as well as instructive; good medicine for both skeptics and true believers." -Kirkus Reviews "Written with wit and a touch of pathos-and sure to please science lovers." -Publishers Weekly 200% of Nothing "It is impossible to read this timely, important book without enjoyment and eye-opening enlightenment." -Martin Gardner "An entertaining, stinging expos?." -Publishers Weekly

A. K. DEWDNEY, Ph,D., is the author of several critically acclaimed math and science books, including Yes, We Have No Neutrons, 2000f Nothing, The Armchair Universe, and The Planiverse: Computer Contact with a Two-Dimensional World.

Preface

v

Point of Departure

1

(10)

The mathematician ponders the question

Part I The Holos

Death of a Dream

11

(22)

Petros Pygonopolis explains Pythagoras's dream of a commensurable cosmos and how it came to naught

The Birth of a Theorem

33

(26)

Pythagoras loses the world but gains Olympus when he discovers his famous theorem

Part II The Superior World

Al Jabar

59

(22)

The astronomer al-Flayli describes the House of Wisdom, the birth of modern numbers, and algebra

The Spheres

81

(26)

A foray into the desert reveals an ancient mistake about the stars and the story of the mistake's correction

Part III The Vanishing Act

The Message

107

(22)

Physicist and historian Maria Canzoni explains how a message from the stars was decoded

The Ultimate Reality

129

(28)

If matter is really energy, perhaps energy is really information

Part IV The Engines of Thought

Horping Zooks

157

(26)

Sir John Brainard explains the process of abstraction and how it led to the mechanization of thought

Mind Machines

183

(20)

The Turing machine gives birth to a new version of mind and to an independently existing universe

Epilogue: Cosmos and Holos

203

(11)

Index

214

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A Mathematical Mystery Tour: Discovering the Truth and Beauty of the Cosmos

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials