Robin Wilson (1) (1943–)

Interesting, and well-presented. It's more about math and less about maps than I'd thought, but those are both interests of mine so it worked. The history of a math problem - not just "can every map be colored with no more than four colors so that no two countries that share a border have the same color" - but can that be _proved_. Chapter after chapter, he'd mention that it had been proved that the theory was true for any map with no more than...20, 50, 150 countries. But is it true for _all_ maps? The question kept getting more abstract - from maps, to geometric shapes, to graphs of connected points. There were a lot of proofs that were eventually shown not to be proofs - holes in their logic. The final answer (the question was first posed in the mid-1800s; the answer came in 1976) required a computer to work the proof, and was greeted with a good deal of skepticism thereby. Was it really a proof if a human hadn't done all the steps? I found that part particularly interesting. It's a question I'd heard of vaguely, and I'm glad I read this; I now understand the question, at least, though the details of the math began to escape me near the end. Definitely worth reading.… (mais)

Indeholder "Preface", "Chronology of Events", "Introduction: From gryphons to gravity", " Scene 1: The Mock Turtle's Education", " Scene 2: Humpty Dumpty's Cravat", " Scene 3: Alice's Examination", " Scene 4: What's in a Name?", " Scene 5: The Beaver's Lesson", " Scene 6: Map-making", " Scene 7: Fortunatus's Purse", " Scene 8: A Question of Gravity", "Fit the First: The Children of the North", " Daresbury", " Croft", " Richmond", " Rugby", " Marking Time", "Fit the Second: Uppe toe mine Eyes yn Worke", " An Oxford Undergraduate", " A Trio of Examinations: Responsions, Moderations, Finals", "Fit the Third: Successes and Failures", " The Senior Scholarship", " College Teaching", " A New Appointment", " A Spot of Schoolteaching", " Dodgson as a Teacher", " Poems and Photographs", " Ciphers", "Fit the Fourth: .. in the Second Book of Euclid", " Here's Looking at Euclid", " Dodgson's Pamphlets", " The Dynamics of a Parti-cle", " The Euclid Debate", " Euclid and his Modern Rivals", " Dodgson's Hexagon", " Squaring the Circle", "Fit the Fifth: Send Me the Next Book", " Dodgson the Deacon", " More Pamphlets", " Letters to Child-friends", " An Algebra Lesson: The Algebraic Geometry of the Plane, Determinants, The Algebraic Geometry of Three-dimensional Space, Dodgson's 'Method of Condensation'", " Dodgson's Determinants", " University Whimsy", "Fit the Sixth: Meat-safes, Majorities and Memory", " College Life", " Voting in Elections", " Memoria Technica", " Endings and Beginnings", " Lawn Tennis Tournaments", " Parliamentary Representation", "Fit the Seventh: Puzzles, Problems and Paradoxes", " A Tangled Tale", " Carroll's Puzzles: Arithmetical Puzzles, Geometrical Puzzles, River-crossing Puzzles", " Other Recreations: The Number 42, Finding the Day of the Week, Colouring Maps, The Monkey and the Weight, Every Triangle is Isosceles, A Symmetric Poem", "Fit the Eighth: That's Logic", " Prim Misses and Sillygisms", " The Game of Logic", " Symbolic Logic", " Venn. Carroll and Churchill", " Logic Puzzles and Paradoxes", " What the Tortoise Said to Achilles", "Conclusion: Math and Aftermath", " Pillow-Problems", " Sums of Squares", " Number-guessing", " Divisibility", " Right-angled Triangles", " Epilogue", "Notes and References", "Acknowledgements and Picture Credits", "Index".

En veloplagt bog om Lewis Carroll, der vokser op som velopdraget og højintelligent søn af en begavet præst og dennes kone. Søskendeflokken tæller 11 børn, som alle lever til voksenalderen. Charles Dodgson underholder fra tidlig alder alle sine søskende med historier, gåder og opgaver.

???… (mais)