Mathematicians is a remarkable collection of ninety-two photographic portraits, featuring some of the most amazing mathematicians of our time. Acclaimed photographer Mariana Cook captures the exuberant and colorful personalities of these brilliant thinkers and the superb images are accompanied by brief autobiographical texts written by each mathematician. Together, the photographs and words illuminate a diverse group of men and women dedicated to the absorbing pursuit of mathematics. The compelling black-and-white portraits introduce readers to mathematicians who are young and old, fathers and daughters, and husbands and wives. They include Fields Medal winners, those at the beginning of major careers, and those who are long-established celebrities in the discipline. Their candid personal essays reveal unique and wide-ranging thoughts, opinions, and humor, as the mathematicians discuss how they became interested in mathematics, why they love the subject, how they remain motivated in the face of mathematical challenges, and how their greatest contributions have paved new directions for future generations. Mathematicians in the book include David Blackwell, Henri Cartan, John Conway, Pierre Deligne, Timothy Gowers, Frances Kirwan, Peter Lax, William Massey, John Milnor, Cathleen Morawetz, John Nash, Karen Uhlenbeck, and many others. Conveying the beauty and joy of mathematics to those both within and outside the field, this photographic collection is an inspirational tribute to mathematicians everywhere.

Mathematicians is a remarkable collection of ninety-two photographic portraits, featuring some of the most amazing mathematicians of our time. Acclaimed photographer Mariana Cook captures the exuberant and colorful personalities of these brilliant thinkers and the superb images are accompanied by brief autobiographical texts written by each mathematician. Together, the photographs and words illuminate a diverse group of men and women dedicated to the absorbing pursuit of mathematics. The compelling black-and-white portraits introduce readers to mathematicians who are young and old, fathers and daughters, and husbands and wives. They include Fields Medal winners, those at the beginning of major careers, and those who are long-established celebrities in the discipline. Their candid personal essays reveal unique and wide-ranging thoughts, opinions, and humor, as the mathematicians discuss how they became interested in mathematics, why they love the subject, how they remain motivated in the face of mathematical challenges, and how their greatest contributions have paved new directions for future generations. Mathematicians in the book include David Blackwell, Henri Cartan, John Conway, Pierre Deligne, Timothy Gowers, Frances Kirwan, Peter Lax, William Massey, John Milnor, Cathleen Morawetz, John Nash, Karen Uhlenbeck, and many others. Conveying the beauty and joy of mathematics to those both within and outside the field, this photographic collection is an inspirational tribute to mathematicians everywhere.

Ioan James introduces and profiles sixty mathematicians from the era when mathematics was freed from its classical origins to develop into its modern form. The subjects, all born between 1700 and 1910, come from a wide range of countries, and all made important contributions to mathematics, through their ideas, their teaching, and their influence. James emphasizes their varied life stories, not the details of their mathematical achievements. The book is organized chronologically into ten chapters, each of which contains biographical sketches of six mathematicians. The men and women James has chosen to portray are representative of the history of mathematics, such that their stories, when read in sequence, convey in human terms something of the way in which mathematics developed. Ioan James is a professor at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford. He is the author of Topological Topics (Cambridge, 1983), Fibrewise Topology (Cambridge, 1989), Introduction to Uniform Spaces (Cambridge, 1990), Topological and Uniform Spaces (Springer-Verlag New York, 1999), and co-author with Michael C. Crabb of Fibrewise Homotopy Theory (Springer-Verlag New York, 1998). James is the former editor of the London Mathematical Society Lecture Note Series and volume editor of numerous books. He is the organizer of the Oxford Series of Topology symposia and other conferences, and co-chairman of the Task Force for Mathematical Sciences of Campaign for Oxford.

Ioan James introduces and profiles sixty mathematicians from the era when mathematics was freed from its classical origins to develop into its modern form. The subjects, all born between 1700 and 1910, come from a wide range of countries, and all made important contributions to mathematics, through their ideas, their teaching, and their influence. James emphasizes their varied life stories, not the details of their mathematical achievements. The book is organized chronologically into ten chapters, each of which contains biographical sketches of six mathematicians. The men and women James has chosen to portray are representative of the history of mathematics, such that their stories, when read in sequence, convey in human terms something of the way in which mathematics developed. Ioan James is a professor at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford. He is the author of Topological Topics (Cambridge, 1983), Fibrewise Topology (Cambridge, 1989), Introduction to Uniform Spaces (Cambridge, 1990), Topological and Uniform Spaces (Springer-Verlag New York, 1999), and co-author with Michael C. Crabb of Fibrewise Homotopy Theory (Springer-Verlag New York, 1998). James is the former editor of the London Mathematical Society Lecture Note Series and volume editor of numerous books. He is the organizer of the Oxford Series of Topology symposia and other conferences, and co-chairman of the Task Force for Mathematical Sciences of Campaign for Oxford.

This meticulously researched and detailed account of the life of the Polish mathematician, Stefan Banach, presents previously unknown facts that shed new light on his accomplishments and chronicles of the many dramatic events of his life. A self-taught prodigy and one of the great scientists of the twentieth century, Banach established modern functional analysis, an entirely new branch of mathematics with important applications. He also helped to develop the theory of topological vector spaces. Such notions as Banach space, Banach algebra, Banach manifold, Banach measure, Banach integral, Banach limit, and Banach bundle are widely used in today's mathematics. The authors interviewed Banach's living family members, former students and acquaintances, unearthed old documents and records, and collected previously unpublished letters and photographs to compile this biography. They also added a concise overview of his pioneering work. Their research was motivated by a desire to provide an accurate and authoritative account of the life and achievements of one of Poland's most famous and celebrated mathematicians. A publication of Gdansk University Press. Distributed non-exclusively worldwide by the American Mathematical Society.

Following on from the success of his two previous books, Remarkable Mathematicians and Remarkable Physicists, Ioan James now profiles 38 remarkable biologists from the last 400 years. The emphasis is on their varied life-stories, not on the details of their achievements, but when read in sequence their biographies, which are organised chronologically, convey in human terms something of the way in which biology has developed over the years. Scientific and biological detail is kept to a minimum, inviting any reader interested in biology to follow this easy path through the subject's modern development.

Among the group of physics honors students huddled in 1957 on a Colorado mountain watching Sputnik bisect the heavens, one young scientist was destined, three short years later, to become a key player in America’s own top-secret spy satellite program. One of our era’s most prolific mathematicians, Karl Gustafson was given just two weeks to write the first US spy satellite’s software. The project would fundamentally alter America’s Cold War strategy, and this autobiographical account of a remarkable academic life spent in the top flight tells this fascinating inside story for the first time. Gustafson takes you from his early pioneering work in computing, through fascinating encounters with Nobel laureates and Fields medalists, to his current observations on mathematics, science and life. He tells of brushes with death, being struck by lightning, and the beautiful women who have been a part of his journey.

Following on from the success of his two previous books, Remarkable Mathematicians and Remarkable Physicists, Ioan James now profiles 38 remarkable biologists from the last 400 years. The emphasis is on their varied life-stories, not on the details of their achievements, but when read in sequence their biographies, which are organised chronologically, convey in human terms something of the way in which biology has developed over the years. Scientific and biological detail is kept to a minimum, inviting any reader interested in biology to follow this easy path through the subject's modern development.

This is the moving story of the life of Ramanujan the great Indian mathematical genius who appeared suddenly as a meteor in 1887, rushed through a short span of thirty-two years, consumed himself and disappeared with equal suddenness. At the age of thirteen, he had mastered Loney's Trigonometry and even calculated the length of the earth. Son of a clerk in a cloth merchant's shop in Kumbakonam, before the was 23, had filled a whole notebook with hundreds of mathematical theorems and results, in spite of poverty, unemployment and absence of anyone who could understand his work. Many of the theorems were new to the mathematical world and some have not yet been proved. The book unfolds in quick succession, the chief events of his life beginning with his search in 1911 for a clerical post, always carrying his notebook under his arm, to his sailing to England in 1914 and his return home in 1919. In Cambridge he was soon acknowledged to be the most remarkable mathematician of our times and was elected a Fellow of the Trinity College of Cambridge and a Fellow to The Royal Society at the early age of thirty. The book contains the reminiscences of several surviving contemporaries of Ramanujan. It highlights his penetrating intuition and childlike simplicity. He was a 'Seer' in mathematics. Though agnostic in arguments, he was ever conscious of the immanence of God.

This remarkable book is a celebration of the state of mathematics at the end of the millennium. Produced under the auspices of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), the volume was born as part of the activities observing the World Mathematical Year 2000. The volume consists of 30 articles written by some of the most influential mathematicians of our time. Authors of 15 contributions were recognized in various years by the IMU as recipients of the Fields Medal, from K. F. Roth (Fields Medalist, 1958) to W. T. Gowers (Fields Medalist, 1998). The articles offer valuable reflections about the amazing mathematical progress we have witnessed in this century and insightful speculations about the possible development of mathematics over the next century. Some articles formulate important problems, challenging future mathematicians. Others pay explicit homage to the famous set of Hilbert Problems posed one hundred years ago, giving enlightening commentary. Yet other papers offer a deeply personal perspective, allowing singular insight into the minds and hearts of people doing mathematics today. Mathematics: Frontiers and Perspectives is a unique volume that pertains to a broad mathematical audience of various backgrounds and levels of interest. It offers readers true and unequaled insight into the wonderful world of mathematics at this important juncture: the turn of the millennium. The work is one of those rare volumes that can be browsed, and if you do simply browse through it, you get a wonderful sense of mathematics today. Yet it also can be intensely studied on a detailed technical level for gaining insight into some of the great problems on which mathematicians are currently working. Individual members of mathematical societies of the IMU member countries can purchase this volume at the AMS member price when buying directly from the AMS.

Thinking Like Mathematicians has already helped thousands of math teachers envision what can happen if they implement the NCTM Standards. It reveals that, with the right teaching strategies and curricula, students can become confident, creative, and actively involved in the math process. They can actually think like mathematicians. Some of the best strategies for achieving these goals are modeled throughout Thinking Like Mathematicians, which has now been updated for Standards 2000. Through vignettes and anecdotes, you'll meet children - many of whom were previously unsuccessful at math - who are problem solvers and confident of their ability to reason mathematically, value the role of mathematics in their lives, and share that understanding with their peers and teachers. You'll also meet the teachers who planned for and implemented the programs that facilitate these mathematics learning processes. Specific chapters include discussions about Standards 2000, planning for a Standards 2000-based program, guidelines for implementing such a program, and modes of assessment and evaluation. A case study is presented of one dynamic child whose remarkable mathematical thinking might have been discouraged by a traditional classroom. The book concludes with a series of questions and answers that will help to explain recommended classroom practices.

Thinking Like Mathematicians has already helped thousands of math teachers envision what can happen if they implement the NCTM Standards. It reveals that, with the right teaching strategies and curricula, students can become confident, creative, and actively involved in the math process. They can actually think like mathematicians. Some of the best strategies for achieving these goals are modeled throughout Thinking Like Mathematicians, which has now been updated for Standards 2000. Through vignettes and anecdotes, you'll meet children - many of whom were previously unsuccessful at math - who are problem solvers and confident of their ability to reason mathematically, value the role of mathematics in their lives, and share that understanding with their peers and teachers. You'll also meet the teachers who planned for and implemented the programs that facilitate these mathematics learning processes. Specific chapters include discussions about Standards 2000, planning for a Standards 2000-based program, guidelines for implementing such a program, and modes of assessment and evaluation. A case study is presented of one dynamic child whose remarkable mathematical thinking might have been discouraged by a traditional classroom. The book concludes with a series of questions and answers that will help to explain recommended classroom practices.

Trigonometry, a work in the collection of the Gelfand School Program, is the result of a collaboration between two experienced pre-college teachers, one of whom, I.M. Gelfand, is considered to be among our most distinguished living mathematicians. His impact on generations of young people, some now mathematicians of renown, continues to be remarkable. Trigonometry covers all the basics of the subject through beautiful illustrations and examples. The definitions of the trigonometric functions are geometrically motivated. Geometric relationships are rewritten in trigonometric form and extended. The text then makes a transition to the study of algebraic and analytic properties of trigonometric functions, in a way that provides a solid foundation for more advanced mathematical discussions. Throughout, the treatment stimulates the reader to think of mathematics as a unified subject. Like other I.M. Gelfand treasures in the program—Algebra, Functions and Graphs, and The Method of Coordinates—Trigonometry is written in an engaging style, and approaches the material in a unique fashion that will motivate students and teachers alike. From a review of Algebra, I.M. Gelfand and A. Shen, ISBN 0-8176-3677-3: "The idea behind teaching is to expect students to learn why things are true, rather than have them memorize ways of solving a few problems, as most of our books have done. [This] same philosophy lies behind the current text by Gel'fand and Shen. There are specific 'practical' problems but there is much more development of the ideas.... [The authors] have shown how to write a serious yet lively book on algebra." —R. Askey, The American Mathematics Monthly  

This remarkable book is a celebration of the state of mathematics at the end of the millennium. Produced under the auspices of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), the volume was born as part of the activities observing the World Mathematical Year 2000. The volume consists of 30 articles written by some of the most influential mathematicians of our time. Authors of 15 contributions were recognized in various years by the IMU as recipients of the Fields Medal, from K. F. Roth (Fields Medalist, 1958) to W. T. Gowers (Fields Medalist, 1998). The articles offer valuable reflections about the amazing mathematical progress we have witnessed in this century and insightful speculations about the possible development of mathematics over the next century. Some articles formulate important problems, challenging future mathematicians. Others pay explicit homage to the famous set of Hilbert Problems posed one hundred years ago, giving enlightening commentary. Yet other papers offer a deeply personal perspective, allowing singular insight into the minds and hearts of people doing mathematics today. Mathematics: Frontiers and Perspectives is a unique volume that pertains to a broad mathematical audience of various backgrounds and levels of interest. It offers readers true and unequaled insight into the wonderful world of mathematics at this important juncture: the turn of the millennium. The work is one of those rare volumes that can be browsed, and if you do simply browse through it, you get a wonderful sense of mathematics today. Yet it also can be intensely studied on a detailed technical level for gaining insight into some of the great problems on which mathematicians are currently working. Individual members of mathematical societies of the IMU member countries can purchase this volume at the AMS member price when buying directly from the AMS.

Trigonometry, a work in the collection of the Gelfand School Program, is the result of a collaboration between two experienced pre-college teachers, one of whom, I.M. Gelfand, is considered to be among our most distinguished living mathematicians. His impact on generations of young people, some now mathematicians of renown, continues to be remarkable. Trigonometry covers all the basics of the subject through beautiful illustrations and examples. The definitions of the trigonometric functions are geometrically motivated. Geometric relationships are rewritten in trigonometric form and extended. The text then makes a transition to the study of algebraic and analytic properties of trigonometric functions, in a way that provides a solid foundation for more advanced mathematical discussions. Throughout, the treatment stimulates the reader to think of mathematics as a unified subject. Like other I.M. Gelfand treasures in the program—Algebra, Functions and Graphs, and The Method of Coordinates—Trigonometry is written in an engaging style, and approaches the material in a unique fashion that will motivate students and teachers alike. From a review of Algebra, I.M. Gelfand and A. Shen, ISBN 0-8176-3677-3: "The idea behind teaching is to expect students to learn why things are true, rather than have them memorize ways of solving a few problems, as most of our books have done. [This] same philosophy lies behind the current text by Gel'fand and Shen. There are specific 'practical' problems but there is much more development of the ideas.... [The authors] have shown how to write a serious yet lively book on algebra." —R. Askey, The American Mathematics Monthly  

This book presents a fascinating story of the long life and great accomplishments of Jacques Hadamard (1865-1963), who was once called "the living legend of mathematics". As one of the last universal mathematicians, Hadamard's contributions to mathematics are landmarks in various fields. His life is linked with world history of the 20th century in a dramatic way. This work provides an inspiring view of the development of various branches of mathematics during the 19th and 20th centuries. Part I of the book portrays Hadamard's family, childhood and student years, scientific triumphs, and his personal life and trials during the first two world wars. The story is told of his involvement in the Dreyfus affair and his subsequent fight for justice and human rights. Also recounted are Hadamard's worldwide travels, his famous seminar, his passion for botany, his home orchestra, where he played the violin with Einstein, and his interest in the psychology of mathematical creativity. Hadamard's life is described in a readable and inviting way. The authors humorously weave throughout the text his jokes and the myths about him. They also movingly recount the tragic side of his life. Stories about his relatives and friends, and old letters and documents create an authentic and colorful picture. The book contains over 300 photographs and illustrations. Part II of the book includes a lucid overview of Hadamard's enormous work, spanning over six decades. The authors do an excellent job of connecting his results to current concerns. While the book is accessible to beginners, it also provides rich information of interest to experts. Vladimir Maz'ya and Tatyana Shaposhnikova were the 2003 laureates of the Insitut de France's Prix Alfred Verdaguer. One or more prizes are awarded each year, based on suggestions from the Académie française, the Académie de sciences, and the Académie de beaux-arts, for the most remarkable work in the arts, literature, and the sciences. In 2003, the award for excellence was granted in recognition of Maz'ya and Shaposhnikova's book, Jacques Hadamard, A Universal Mathematician, which is both an historical book about a great citizen and a scientific book about a great mathematician. Co-published with the London Mathematical Society beginning with Volume 4. Members of the LMS may order directly from the AMS at the AMS member price. The LMS is registered with the Charity Commissioners.

Two mathematicians must join forces to stop a serial killer in this spellbinding international bestseller A paperback sensation in Argentina, Spain, and the United Kingdom, The Oxford Murders has been hailed as "a remarkable feat" (Time Out London) and its author as "one of Argentina’s most distinctive voices" (The Times Literary Supplement). It begins on a summer day in Oxford, when a young Argentine graduate student finds his landlady—an elderly woman who helped crack the Enigma Code during World War II —murdered in cold blood. Meanwhile, a renowned Oxford logician receives an anonymous note bearing a circle and the words "the first of a series." As the murders begin to pile up and more symbols are revealed, it is up to this unlikely pair to decipher the pattern before the killer strikes again.

Mathematicians call it the Monty Hall Problem, and it is one of the most interesting mathematical brain teasers of recent times. Imagine that you face three doors, behind one of which is a prize. You choose one but do not open it. The host--call him Monty Hall--opens a different door, always choosing one he knows to be empty. Left with two doors, will you do better by sticking with your first choice, or by switching to the other remaining door? In this light-hearted yet ultimately serious book, Jason Rosenhouse explores the history of this fascinating puzzle. Using a minimum of mathematics (and none at all for much of the book), he shows how the problem has fascinated philosophers, psychologists, and many others, and examines the many variations that have appeared over the years. As Rosenhouse demonstrates, the Monty Hall Problem illuminates fundamental mathematical issues and has abiding philosophical implications. Perhaps most important, he writes, the problem opens a window on our cognitive difficulties in reasoning about uncertainty.

This fascinating collection identifies famous figures from the past, whose behaviour suggests they may have had autism, a disorder that was not defined until the mid - 20th century. James looks at the lives of 20 individuals - scientists, artists, politicians and philosophers - examining in detail their interests, successes, indifferences and shortcomings. Among the profiles are those of mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell, who wondered in his autobiography how he managed to hurt the people around him quite without meaning to; biologist Alfred Kinsey, who excelled in academia but was ill at ease in social situations; and the writer Patricia Highsmith, who had very definite likes (fountain pens and absence of noise) and dislikes (television and four-course meals). From Albert Einstein to Philip of Spain, these intriguing individuals all showed clear evidence of autistic traits. This book will be of interest to general readers and anyone with a personal or professional interest in autism.

In the late summer of 1893, following the Congress of Mathematicians held in Chicago, Felix Klein gave two weeks of lectures on the current state of mathematics. Rather than offering a universal perspective, Klein presented his personal view of the most important topics of the time. It is remarkable how most of the topics continue to be important today. Originally published in 1893 and reissued by the AMS in 1911, we are pleased to bring this work into print once more with this new edition. Klein begins by highlighting the works of Clebsch and of Lie. In particular, he discusses Clebsch's work on Abelian functions and compares his approach to the theory with Riemann's more geometrical point of view. Klein devotes two lectures to Sophus Lie, focussing on his contributions to geometry, including sphere geometry and contact geometry. Klein's ability to connect different mathematical disciplines clearly comes through in his lectures on mathematical developments. For instance, he discusses recent progress in non-Euclidean geometry by emphasizing the connections to projective geometry and the role of transformation groups. In his descriptions of analytic function theory and of recent work in hyperelliptic and Abelian functions, Klein is guided by Riemann's geometric point of view. He discusses Galois theory and solutions of algebraic equations of degree five or higher by reducing them to normal forms that might be solved by non-algebraic means. Thus, as discovered by Hermite and Kronecker, the quintic can be solved "by elliptic functions". This also leads to Klein's well-known work connecting the quintic to the group of the icosahedron. Klein expounds on the roles of intuition and logical thinking in mathematics. He reflects on the influence of physics and the physical world on mathematics and, conversely, on the influence of mathematics on physics and the other natural sciences. The discussion is strikingly similar to today's discussions about ``physical mathematics''. There are a few other topics covered in the lectures which are somewhat removed from Klein's own work. For example, he discusses Hilbert's proof of the transcendence of certain types of numbers (including $\pi$ and $e$), which Klein finds much simpler than the methods used by Lindemann to show the transcendence of $\pi$. Also, Klein uses the example of quadratic forms (and forms of higher degree) to explain the need for a theory of ideals as developed by Kummer. Klein's look at mathematics at the end of the 19th Century remains compelling today, both as history and as mathematics. It is delightful and fascinating to observe from a one-hundred year retrospect, the musings of one of the masters of an earlier era.

This remarkable book has endured as a true masterpiece of mathematical exposition. There are few mathematics books that are still so widely read and continue to have so much to offer--after more than half a century! The book is overflowing with mathematical ideas, which are always explained clearly and elegantly, and above all, with penetrating insight. It is a joy to read, both for beginners and experienced mathematicians. "Hilbert and Cohn-Vossen" is full of interesting facts, many of which you wish you had known before, or had wondered where they could be found. The book begins with examples of the simplest curves and surfaces, including thread constructions of certain quadrics and other surfaces. The chapter on regular systems of points leads to the crystallographic groups and the regular polyhedra in $\mathbb{R}^3$. In this chapter, they also discuss plane lattices. By considering unit lattices, and throwing in a small amount of number theory when necessary, they effortlessly derive Leibniz's series: $\pi/4 = 1 - 1/3 + 1/5 - 1/7 + - \ldots$. In the section on lattices in three and more dimensions, the authors consider sphere-packing problems, including the famous Kepler problem. One of the most remarkable chapters is "Projective Configurations". In a short introductory section, Hilbert and Cohn-Vossen give perhaps the most concise and lucid description of why a general geometer would care about projective geometry and why such an ostensibly plain setup is truly rich in structure and ideas. Here, we see regular polyhedra again, from a different perspective. One of the high points of the chapter is the discussion of Schlafli's Double-Six, which leads to the description of the 27 lines on the general smooth cubic surface. As is true throughout the book, the magnificent drawings in this chapter immeasurably help the reader. A particularly intriguing section in the chapter on differential geometry is Eleven Properties of the Sphere. Which eleven properties of such a ubiquitous mathematical object caught their discerning eye and why? Many mathematicians are familiar with the plaster models of surfaces found in many mathematics departments. The book includes pictures of some of the models that are found in the Göttingen collection. Furthermore, the mysterious lines that mark these surfaces are finally explained! The chapter on kinematics includes a nice discussion of linkages and the geometry of configurations of points and rods that are connected and, perhaps, constrained in some way. This topic in geometry has become increasingly important in recent times, especially in applications to robotics. This is another example of a simple situation that leads to a rich geometry. It would be hard to overestimate the continuing influence Hilbert-Cohn-Vossen's book has had on mathematicians of this century. It surely belongs in the "pantheon" of great mathematics books.

The name Bourbaki is known to every mathematician. Many also know something of the origins of Bourbaki, yet few know the full story. In 1935, a small group of young mathematicians in France decided to write a fundamental treatise on analysis to replace the standard texts of the time. They ended up writing the most influential and sweeping mathematical treatise of the twentieth century, Les élements de mathématique. Maurice Mashaal lifts the veil from this secret society, showing us how heated debates, schoolboy humor, and the devotion and hard work of the members produced the ten books that took them over sixty years to write. The book has many first-hand accounts of the origins of Bourbaki, their meetings, their seminars, and the members themselves. He also discusses the lasting influence that Bourbaki has had on mathematics, through both the Élements and the Seminaires. The book is illustrated with numerous remarkable photographs. Readership Students, mathematicians, and historians interested in the group of mathematicians known as Bourbaki.

This fascinating collection identifies famous figures from the past, whose behaviour suggests they may have had autism, a disorder that was not defined until the mid - 20th century. James looks at the lives of 20 individuals - scientists, artists, politicians and philosophers - examining in detail their interests, successes, indifferences and shortcomings. Among the profiles are those of mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell, who wondered in his autobiography how he managed to hurt the people around him quite without meaning to; biologist Alfred Kinsey, who excelled in academia but was ill at ease in social situations; and the writer Patricia Highsmith, who had very definite likes (fountain pens and absence of noise) and dislikes (television and four-course meals). From Albert Einstein to Philip of Spain, these intriguing individuals all showed clear evidence of autistic traits. This book will be of interest to general readers and anyone with a personal or professional interest in autism.

This remarkable book has endured as a true masterpiece of mathematical exposition. There are few mathematics books that are still so widely read and continue to have so much to offer--after more than half a century! The book is overflowing with mathematical ideas, which are always explained clearly and elegantly, and above all, with penetrating insight. It is a joy to read, both for beginners and experienced mathematicians. "Hilbert and Cohn-Vossen" is full of interesting facts, many of which you wish you had known before, or had wondered where they could be found. The book begins with examples of the simplest curves and surfaces, including thread constructions of certain quadrics and other surfaces. The chapter on regular systems of points leads to the crystallographic groups and the regular polyhedra in $\mathbb{R}^3$. In this chapter, they also discuss plane lattices. By considering unit lattices, and throwing in a small amount of number theory when necessary, they effortlessly derive Leibniz's series: $\pi/4 = 1 - 1/3 + 1/5 - 1/7 + - \ldots$. In the section on lattices in three and more dimensions, the authors consider sphere-packing problems, including the famous Kepler problem. One of the most remarkable chapters is "Projective Configurations". In a short introductory section, Hilbert and Cohn-Vossen give perhaps the most concise and lucid description of why a general geometer would care about projective geometry and why such an ostensibly plain setup is truly rich in structure and ideas. Here, we see regular polyhedra again, from a different perspective. One of the high points of the chapter is the discussion of Schlafli's Double-Six, which leads to the description of the 27 lines on the general smooth cubic surface. As is true throughout the book, the magnificent drawings in this chapter immeasurably help the reader. A particularly intriguing section in the chapter on differential geometry is Eleven Properties of the Sphere. Which eleven properties of such a ubiquitous mathematical object caught their discerning eye and why? Many mathematicians are familiar with the plaster models of surfaces found in many mathematics departments. The book includes pictures of some of the models that are found in the Göttingen collection. Furthermore, the mysterious lines that mark these surfaces are finally explained! The chapter on kinematics includes a nice discussion of linkages and the geometry of configurations of points and rods that are connected and, perhaps, constrained in some way. This topic in geometry has become increasingly important in recent times, especially in applications to robotics. This is another example of a simple situation that leads to a rich geometry. It would be hard to overestimate the continuing influence Hilbert-Cohn-Vossen's book has had on mathematicians of this century. It surely belongs in the "pantheon" of great mathematics books.

The name Bourbaki is known to every mathematician. Many also know something of the origins of Bourbaki, yet few know the full story. In 1935, a small group of young mathematicians in France decided to write a fundamental treatise on analysis to replace the standard texts of the time. They ended up writing the most influential and sweeping mathematical treatise of the twentieth century, Les élements de mathématique. Maurice Mashaal lifts the veil from this secret society, showing us how heated debates, schoolboy humor, and the devotion and hard work of the members produced the ten books that took them over sixty years to write. The book has many first-hand accounts of the origins of Bourbaki, their meetings, their seminars, and the members themselves. He also discusses the lasting influence that Bourbaki has had on mathematics, through both the Élements and the Seminaires. The book is illustrated with numerous remarkable photographs. Readership Students, mathematicians, and historians interested in the group of mathematicians known as Bourbaki.