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Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinityby David Foster Wallace
Review-a-Day (What is Review-a-Day?)"Wallace approaches his subject matter with a surprising degree of humor, genuine enthusiasm, and technical depth....Many of us can remember enjoying a professor who seemed to occupy his own rarified air of cognition, whose stream-of-consciousness ramblings left you confused, frustrated, and bewilderingly well-informed. One would hope for more pop technical 'booklets' from Wallace in the future, were infinity not such a tough act to follow." Darren Abrecht, Christian Science Monitor (read the entire Christian Science Monitor review) "[I]t's hard to figure out just who the book is for. I relished Wallace's passionately erudite tone and the many exciting mathematical moments he helped me revisit, but there was nothing in Everything that I hadn't learned as an undergraduate math major. On the other hand, readers who haven't taken at least two semesters of calculus will probably have a hard time keeping up, despite Wallace's many protestations to the contrary. If you enjoyed math but quit after calculus because you didn't have room in your schedule; if you've forgotten quite a bit over the past few decades and want a stylish reminder; if you regret having focused on the discipline's real-world applications and wish you'd paid more attention to its philosophical issues; or if you're the captain of your middle school math team and have begun working through your big sister's calculus book because you're bored, then you'll love this book. Everyone else, try it anyway and prove me wrong." Polly Shulman, Salon.com (read the entire Salon review) Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:The best-selling author of Infinite Jest on the two-thousand-year-old quest to understand infinity. One of the outstanding voices of his generation, David Foster Wallace has won a large and devoted following for the intellectual ambition and bravura style of his fiction and essays. Now he brings his considerable talents to the history of one of math's most enduring puzzles: the seemingly paradoxical nature of infinity. Is infinity a valid mathematical property or a meaningless abstraction? The nineteenth-century mathematical genius Georg Cantor's answer to this question not only surprised him but also shook the very foundations upon which math had been built. Cantor's counterintuitive discovery of a progression of larger and larger infinities created controversy in his time and may have hastened his mental breakdown, but it also helped lead to the development of set theory, analytic philosophy, and even computer technology. Smart, challenging, and thoroughly rewarding, Wallace's tour de force brings immediate and highprofile recognition to the bizarre and fascinating world of higher mathematics. Book News Annotation:California novelist and essayist Wallace contributes to the series of
popular technical writing by examining a set of mathematical
achievements that he finds to be extremely abstract and technical but
also extremely profound, interesting, and beautiful. He writes for
readers who have no technical background, and includes
sections—clearly marked—for those who do. He has not indexed
his work.
Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) Review:"[T]his book is as weird and wonderful as you'd expect." Publishers Weekly Review:"[C]lever, extensively footnoted, and shockingly readable....A brilliant antidote both to boring math textbooks and to pop-culture math books that emphasize the discoverer over the discovery." Booklist (Starred Review) Review:"[E]ngaging, self-conscious, playful, and often breathless." Library Journal Synopsis:The bestselling author of Infinite Jest takes on the 2,000 year-old quest to understand infinity. Wallace brings his considerable talents to the history of one of math's most enduring puzzles: the seemingly paradoxical nature of infinity. Synopsis:Is infinity a valid mathematical property or a meaningless abstraction? Wallace examines one of math's most enduring puzzles: the seemingly paradoxical nature of infinity, exploring the 19th century's mathematical genius Cantor's answer to the question. Synopsis:Includes bibliographical references (p. 314-319).
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