Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension: A Mathematician's Journey Through Narcissistic Numbers, Optimal Dating Algorithms, at Least Two Kinds of Infinity, and More

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PDF / EPUB File Name: Things_to_Make_and_Do_in_the_Fourth_Dimens_-_Matt_Parker.pdf, Things_to_Make_and_Do_in_the_Fourth_Dimens_-_Matt_Parker.epub In the absorbing and exhilarating Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension, Parker sets out to convince his readers to revisit the very math that put them off the subject as fourteen-year-olds. Starting with the foundations of math familiar from school (numbers, geometry, and algebra), he reveals how it is possible to climb all the way up to the topology and to four-dimensional shapes, and from there to infinity—and slightly beyond. Mass and energy (which do not need to be strictly separated, as they are now regarded as equivalent thanks to Einstein’s special theory) change the shape of spacetime in their vicinity. You, reading this very text, are an entity in the universe, a thriving bundle of matter. You have mass and you have energy. The spacetime within you, throughout you, and near you is now distorted thanks to that mass and energy. Space and time are changed thanks to your existence.

This is what physicists give a single word: spacetime. Take four pens from your desk at work. Start with two and make a cross on your desk, so that they are sitting perpendicular two each other. Now add a third pen and position it so that it’s perpendicular to both of the first two. To do this you can no longer let the pencils sit on the desk, which is a two-dimensional surface. You have to hold our contraption in the air, which is a part of the three-dimensional world that we’re used to. But in general relativity, the stage itself becomes the starring actor, the name emblazoned on the Playbill. To make a theory of gravity compatible with the relativity of space and time (now spacetime), Einstein realized that gravity is not a force at all, at least not of the kind envisioned by Newton.

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But in the language of Einstein there are no forces, no invisible strings. There is only spacetime and spacetime alone. In Einstein’s radical reevaluation of gravity, all objects travel in straight lines, always and forever. But the spacetime that those objects must traverse bends beneath them. A hiker making their way from one waypoint to another may travel in a straight line – according to a map and according to their feet, which are always placed directly in front of one another with every step – but must follow the bends and curves (not to mention the gnarled tree roots) along the trail, lest they get lost in the wilderness. Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension shows off math at its most playful and multifarious, ranging from classics like knot theory and ruler-and-compass constructions to more whimsical topics like the topology of beer logos and error-correcting scarves.” — Jordan Ellenberg, author of How to Not Be Wrong A book from the stand-up mathematician that makes math fun again! Math is boring, says the mathematician and comedian Matt Parker. Part of the problem may be the way the subject is taught, but it’s also true that we all, to a greater or lesser extent, find math difficult and counterintuitive. This counterintuitiveness is actually part of the point, argues Parker: the extraordinary thing about math is that it allows us to access logic and ideas beyond what our brains can instinctively do—through its logical tools we are able to reach beyond our innate abilities and grasp more and more abstract concepts. In the absorbing and exhilarating Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension, Parker sets out to convince his readers to revisit the very math that put them off the subject as fourteen-year-olds. Starting with the foundations of math familiar from school (numbers, geometry, and algebra), he reveals how it is possible to climb all the way up to the topology and to four-dimensional shapes, and from there to infinity—and slightly beyond. Both playful and sophisticated, Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension is filled with captivating games and puzzles, a buffet of optional hands-on activities that entices us to take pleasure in math that is normally only available to those studying at a university level. Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension invites us to re-learn much of what we missed in school and, this time, to be utterly enthralled by it. Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension by Matt Parker – eBook Details Above all else, remember that the motivation for climbing this structure should be merely to enjoy the view as you go. For too long, maths has been synonymous with education; it should be about fun and exploration. One puzzle at a time, one maths game after another, and soon we'll be at the top, enjoying all the maths most people never know even exists. We'll be able to play with things beyond normal human intuition. Mathematics allows access to the world of imaginary numbers, to shapes that exist only in 196,883 dimensions, and objects beyond infinity. From the fourth dimension to transcendental numbers, we'll see it all.

Matt Parker is some sort of unholy fusion of a prankster, wizard and brilliant nerd--maths is rarely this clever, funny and ever so slightly naughty.” — Adam Rutherford, author of CreationYou can’t. There are only three spatial dimensions. And beyond that, you can’t even think of a fourth spatial dimension, because our brains evolved in a three-dimensional world (there are some people who claim that they can imagine a fourth dimension, but I suspect that they’re either lying or just fooling themselves).

This is exactly the sort of maths I wish more people knew about: the surprising, the unexpected and, most importantly, the type that wins you free drinks. My goal in this book is to show people all the fun bits of mathematics. It's a shame that most people think maths is just what they were subjected to at secondary school: it is so much more than that. This is the essence of mathematics. It is the pursuit of pattern and logic for their own sake; it is sating our playful curiosity. New mathematical discoveries may have countless practical applications – and we may owe our lives to them – but that's rarely why they were discovered in the first place. As the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman allegedly said of his own subject: ‘Physics is a lot like sex; sure it has a practical use, but that's not why we do it.' Math is boring, says the mathematician and comedian Matt Parker. Part of the problem may be the way the subject is taught, but it's also true that we all, to a greater or lesser extent, find math difficult and counterintuitive. This counterintuitiveness is actually part of the point, argues Parker: the extraordinary thing about math is that it allows us to access logic and ideas beyond what our brains can instinctively do—through its logical tools we are able to reach beyond our innate abilities and grasp more and more abstract concepts. But while you can’t hold in your mind the concept of a fourth dimension, you can experience it. The flow of time from past to future sits as its own dimension. You, holding your odd arrangement of pens, spans the dimension of time from the moment you first put it together until it all falls apart. For that duration, you created a four-dimensional piece of sculpture.

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That is what the maths kids knew. This is why people can make a career out of being a mathematician. If someone works in maths research, they're not simply doing harder and harder sums, or longer divisions, as people imagine. That would be like a professional footballer merely getting faster at dribbling up the field. A professional mathematician is using the skills they've learned and the techniques they've honed to explore the field of mathematics and discover new things. They might be hunting for shapes in higher dimensions, trying to find new types of numbers, or exploring a world beyond infinity. They are not just practising arithmetic.