## Birth Of A Theorem

Author : Cédric Villani
ISBN : 9780374710231
Genre : Biography & Autobiography
File Size : 39.39 MB
Format : PDF, Docs

In 2010, French mathematician Cédric Villani received the Fields Medal, the most coveted prize in mathematics, in recognition of a proof which he devised with his close collaborator Clément Mouhot to explain one of the most surprising theories in classical physics. Birth of a Theorem is Villani's own account of the years leading up to the award. It invites readers inside the mind of a great mathematician as he wrestles with the most important work of his career. But you don't have to understand nonlinear Landau damping to love Birth of a Theorem. It doesn't simplify or overexplain; rather, it invites readers into collaboration. Villani's diaries, emails, and musings enmesh you in the process of discovery. You join him in unproductive lulls and late-night breakthroughs. You're privy to the dining-hall conversations at the world's greatest research institutions. Villani shares his favorite songs, his love of manga, and the imaginative stories he tells his children. In mathematics, as in any creative work, it is the thinker's whole life that propels discovery—and with Birth of a Theorem, Cédric Villani welcomes you into his.
Category: Biography & Autobiography

## Birth Of A Theorem

Author : Cédric Villani
ISBN : 9780099581970
Genre : Mathematics
File Size : 43.44 MB
Format : PDF, ePub

âeoeThis man could plainly do for mathematics what Brian Cox has done for physicsâe âe" Sunday Times How does a genius see the world? Where and how does inspiration strike? CÃ©dric Villani takes us on a mesmerising adventure as he wrestles with the Boltzmann equation âe" a new theorem that will eventually win him the most coveted prize in mathematics and a place in the mathematical history books. Along the way he encounters obstacles and setbacks, losses of faith and even brushes with madness. His story is one of courage and partnership, doubt and anxiety, elation and despair. Of ordinary family life blurring with the abstract world of mathematical physics, of theories and equations that haunt your dreams and seeking the elusive inspiration found only in a locked, darkened room. Blending science with history, biography with myth, Villani conjures up an inimitable cast: the omnipresent Einstein, mad genius Kurt Godel, and Villaniâe(tm)s personal hero, John Nash. Step inside the magical world of CÃ©dric Villaniâe¦
Category: Mathematics

## Birth Of A Theorem

Author : Cédric Villani
ISBN : 9781448156573
Genre : Mathematics
File Size : 33.60 MB
Format : PDF, Docs

“This man could plainly do for mathematics what Brian Cox has done for physics” — Sunday Times How does a genius see the world? Where and how does inspiration strike? Cédric Villani takes us on a mesmerising adventure as he wrestles with the Boltzmann equation – a new theorem that will eventually win him the most coveted prize in mathematics and a place in the mathematical history books. Along the way he encounters obstacles and setbacks, losses of faith and even brushes with madness. His story is one of courage and partnership, doubt and anxiety, elation and despair. Of ordinary family life blurring with the abstract world of mathematical physics, of theories and equations that haunt your dreams and seeking the elusive inspiration found only in a locked, darkened room. Blending science with history, biography with myth, Villani conjures up an inimitable cast: the omnipresent Einstein, mad genius Kurt Godel, and Villani’s personal hero, John Nash. Step inside the magical world of Cédric Villani...
Category: Mathematics

## Euler S Gem

Author : David S. Richeson
ISBN : 1400838568
Genre : Mathematics
File Size : 63.14 MB
Format : PDF, ePub, Mobi

Leonhard Euler's polyhedron formula describes the structure of many objects--from soccer balls and gemstones to Buckminster Fuller's buildings and giant all-carbon molecules. Yet Euler's formula is so simple it can be explained to a child. Euler's Gem tells the illuminating story of this indispensable mathematical idea. From ancient Greek geometry to today's cutting-edge research, Euler's Gem celebrates the discovery of Euler's beloved polyhedron formula and its far-reaching impact on topology, the study of shapes. In 1750, Euler observed that any polyhedron composed of V vertices, E edges, and F faces satisfies the equation V-E+F=2. David Richeson tells how the Greeks missed the formula entirely; how Descartes almost discovered it but fell short; how nineteenth-century mathematicians widened the formula's scope in ways that Euler never envisioned by adapting it for use with doughnut shapes, smooth surfaces, and higher dimensional shapes; and how twentieth-century mathematicians discovered that every shape has its own Euler's formula. Using wonderful examples and numerous illustrations, Richeson presents the formula's many elegant and unexpected applications, such as showing why there is always some windless spot on earth, how to measure the acreage of a tree farm by counting trees, and how many crayons are needed to color any map. Filled with a who's who of brilliant mathematicians who questioned, refined, and contributed to a remarkable theorem's development, Euler's Gem will fascinate every mathematics enthusiast.
Category: Mathematics

## Optimal Transport

Author : Cédric Villani
ISBN : 9783540710509
Genre : Mathematics
File Size : 77.97 MB
Format : PDF, ePub, Docs

At the close of the 1980s, the independent contributions of Yann Brenier, Mike Cullen and John Mather launched a revolution in the venerable field of optimal transport founded by G. Monge in the 18th century, which has made breathtaking forays into various other domains of mathematics ever since. The author presents a broad overview of this area, supplying complete and self-contained proofs of all the fundamental results of the theory of optimal transport at the appropriate level of generality. Thus, the book encompasses the broad spectrum ranging from basic theory to the most recent research results. PhD students or researchers can read the entire book without any prior knowledge of the field. A comprehensive bibliography with notes that extensively discuss the existing literature underlines the book’s value as a most welcome reference text on this subject.
Category: Mathematics

## Turing S Vision

Author : Chris Bernhardt
ISBN : 9780262034548
Genre : Biography & Autobiography
File Size : 51.56 MB
Format : PDF, ePub

In 1936, when he was just twenty-four years old, Alan Turing wrote a remarkable paper in which he outlined the theory of computation, laying out the ideas that underlie all modern computers. This groundbreaking and powerful theory now forms the basis of computer science. In Turing's Vision, Chris Bernhardt explains the theory, Turing's most important contribution, for the general reader. Bernhardt argues that the strength of Turing's theory is its simplicity, and that, explained in a straightforward manner, it is eminently understandable by the nonspecialist. As Marvin Minsky writes, "The sheer simplicity of the theory's foundation and extraordinary short path from this foundation to its logical and surprising conclusions give the theory a mathematical beauty that alone guarantees it a permanent place in computer theory." Bernhardt begins with the foundation and systematically builds to the surprising conclusions. He also views Turing's theory in the context of mathematical history, other views of computation (including those of Alonzo Church), Turing's later work, and the birth of the modern computer. In the paper, "On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem," Turing thinks carefully about how humans perform computation, breaking it down into a sequence of steps, and then constructs theoretical machines capable of performing each step. Turing wanted to show that there were problems that were beyond any computer's ability to solve; in particular, he wanted to find a decision problem that he could prove was undecidable. To explain Turing's ideas, Bernhardt examines three well-known decision problems to explore the concept of undecidability; investigates theoretical computing machines, including Turing machines; explains universal machines; and proves that certain problems are undecidable, including Turing's problem concerning computable numbers.
Category: Biography & Autobiography

## Topics In Optimal Transportation

Author : Cédric Villani
ISBN : 9780821833124
Genre : Mathematics
File Size : 28.88 MB
Format : PDF

Cedric Villani's book is a lucid and very readable documentation of the tremendous recent analytic progress in optimal mass transportation'' theory and of its diverse and unexpected applications in optimization, nonlinear PDE, geometry, and mathematical physics. --Lawrence C. Evans, University of California at Berkeley In 1781, Gaspard Monge defined the problem of optimal transportation'', or the transferring of mass with the least possible amount of work, with applications to engineering in mind. In 1942, Leonid Kantorovich applied the newborn machinery of linear programming to Monge's problem, with applications to economics in mind. In 1987, Yann Brenier used optimal transportation to prove a new projection theorem on the set of measure preserving maps, with applications to fluid mechanics in mind. Each of these contributions marked the beginning of a whole mathematical theory, with many unexpected ramifications. Nowadays, the Monge-Kantorovich problem is used and studied by researchers from extremely diverse horizons, including probability theory, functional analysis, isoperimetry, partial differential equations, and even meteorology. Originating from a graduate course, the present volume is at once an introduction to the field of optimal transportation and a survey of the research on the topic over the last 15 years. The book is intended for graduate students and researchers, and it covers both theory and applications. Readers are only assumed to be familiar with the basics of measure theory and functional analysis.
Category: Mathematics

## Hypocoercivity

Author : Cdric Villani
ISBN : 9780821844984
Genre : Mathematics
File Size : 28.39 MB
Format : PDF, ePub, Mobi

This memoir attempts at a systematic study of convergence to stationary state for certain classes of degenerate diffusive equations, taking the general form ${\frac{\partial f}{\partial t}}+ L f =0$. The question is whether and how one can overcome the degeneracy by exploiting commutators.
Category: Mathematics

## The Secret Of Fatima

Author : Peter J Tanous
ISBN : 9781504035095
Genre : Fiction
File Size : 60.68 MB
Format : PDF, ePub, Docs

Father Kevin Thrall is chaplain to a poor, inner-city parochial school in Washington, D.C. where he leads a quiet and rewarding life. But he is also troubled by his past in combat with an elite military unit. Even after taking his vows, he is as ready to clasp his hands around the grip of a Glock as in prayer. He sometimes wonders who he really is. To the Vatican, however, Father Thrall is uniquely suited for a dangerous mission—one directly tied to the mystery of a 100-year old prophecy. One hundred years ago, the Blessed Virgin revealed a mysterious prophecy to three Portuguese shepherd children. The three Secrets of Fatima were closely held by the Vatican for decades, until the text of the third and last secret was finally released in 2000. But many believe that the Vatican withheld important parts of the Third Secret, perhaps because its contents were too dangerous to reveal . . . The Secret of Fatima’s knife-edge plot unfolds as both a modern-day spy thriller and a spiritual quest, as Father Thrall faces implacable enemies both within and outside of the Church who will test both his unique abilities and his faith. If he fails, the very foundations of the world will be shaken.
Category: Fiction

## Patterns Of The Universe

Author : Alex Bellos
ISBN : 9781615193233
Genre : Art
File Size : 76.32 MB
Format : PDF, ePub, Docs