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COINCIDENCES, CHAOS, AND ALL THAT MATH JAZZ: MAKING LIGHT OF WEIGHTY IDEAS by Edward B. Burger and Michael Starbird W. W. Norton and Company, 2005, 276 pp. ISBN: 0-393-05945-6
Come on, babe,
We 're gonna brush the sky; I betcha lucky Lindy
Never flew so high 'cause in the stratosphere,
How could he lend an ear
To all that jazz?
("Velma," All Thai Jazz, from Bob Fosse's musical Chicago; Marshall, 2002).
Mystery, curiosity, chaos, beauty, jazz music, and - math? Yes! Like Velma, Burger and Starbird invite their audience on a whirlwind tour of a world not often seen by the average individual. In this case, it is the world of truly jazzy mathematical ideas that reveal often astounding patterns and truths. But readers, unlike Lindbergh in the song above, will soar through the stratosphere of fun and fascinating facts and concepts while attuning their ears to the earthly mathematical riffs that underpin our abilities to make our planes and our imaginations fly, swoop, and barrel roll through the universe ... and maybe even beyond.
First and foremost, while maintaining a lighthearted, humorous, and extremely accessible sense about the beauty and wonder of mathematics, Burger and Starbird do an excellent job of instructing the reader about how fundamental concepts produce startling observations. Readers learn how small variations can result in chaos; about Fibonacci numbers and nature; what a big number really is;...