Synopses & Reviews
A squared plus b squared equals c squared. It sounds simple, doesnt it? Yet this familiar expression opens a gateway into the riotous garden of mathematics, and sends us on a journey of exploration in the company of two inspired guides, Robert and Ellen Kaplan. With wit, verve, and clarity, they trace the life of the Pythagorean theorem, from ancient Babylon to the present, visiting along the way Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, President James Garfield, and the Freemasons—not to mention the elusive Pythagoras himself, who almost certainly did not make the statement that bears his name. As in the authors bestselling The Nothing That Is and Chances Are..., the excitement of mathematics leaps from the pages of Hidden Harmonies.
About the Author
Robert and Ellen Kaplan have taught mathematics to people from six to sixty, at leading independent schools and, most recently, at Harvard University. Robert Kaplan is the author of the bestselling The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero, which has been translated into 10 languages, and together they wrote The Art of the Infinite and Out of the Labyrinth. Ellen Kaplan is also co-author of Chances Are: Adventures in Probability and Bozo Sapiens: Why to Err Is Human, co-written with her son Michael Kaplan. They live in Southampton, Massachusetts.