Do I Count?: Stories from Mathematics (Paperback)

On the Number Line
3?Can Bees Count?
5?Can Chickens Compute?
10?And the Name of the Rose
13?Bad Luck?
42?The Answer to Everything?
91?The Numbers on the Bone
1729?Hardy’s Taxi
119/100?High Percentages
π?As Beautiful as the Mona Lisa?
√?1?Victim of a Character Assassination
χ₀?The End of the Number Line?

The Never-Ending Story of Prime Numbers
Euclid Is Still Right
How Many Prime Numbers Are There?
Fermat Made a Mistake
The "Mozart of Mathematics" Makes Use of an Error
Another Search for Errors

The Mathematical Perspective
Estimates
Random Numbers
Everything Far Above Average
Integers

Caution: Equations
Equations for Everything?
The Body Mass Index
The Huntington Affair
Pythagoras Lives
Equations as Art

The Small Puzzles
Sudokus
3x + 1
The Perfect Monster
The Great Puzzles

Where Mathematics Is Created
At the Desk
At the Coffee Machine
At the Cafe
In the Computer
In Bed
In Captivity
In an Attic Room in Princeton
On a Beach
In a Paradise with a Library
Knowledge in the ArXiv
Research in the Internet?

The Book of Proofs
About Proofs
Concerning Errors
About Computer Proofs
Concerning Precision
Concerning Surprises

Three Legends
Mathematician vs. Mathematician
Was It Kovalevskaya's Fault?
The Disappearance of Alexander Grothendieck

What Kinds of People Are These?
Paul Erd?s: Traveler
Gian-Carlo Rota: Provocateur
Persi Diaconis: Magician
Daniel Biss: Politician
Caroline Lasser: Colleague

What Mathematicians Can Do
Self-Confidence and Visions
"Unfortunately Difficult" vs. "The Right Stuff"
Record Races
You Know More Math Than You Think
"Mathematics Is …"

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Index