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Alcuin's Recreational Mathematics: River Crossings and other Timeless Puzzles
Author(s): Prof Marcel Danesi (Author)
- Publisher finelybook 出版社: Oxford University Press
- Publication Date 出版日期: February 20, 2025
- Language 语言: English
- Print length 页数: 256 pages
- ISBN-10: 0198925301
- ISBN-13: 9780198925309
Book Description
Propositiones ad acuendos juvenes (“Problems to Sharpen the Young”) is a ninth-century book written by medieval teacher and scholar Alcuin of York. Today, it has become one of the foundational texts in what is commonly called recreational mathematics. The book has been translated in many languages and analysed from various mathematical angles and perspectives, from contemporary arithmetic and geometry to the nature of sequences. It is not only a collection of ingenious and challenging puzzles, but the core ideas collected in this book have become major themes and branches of mathematics.
Here, Marcel Danesi revisits all fifty-three problems in Alcuin's original text, providing detailed solutions and analyses.
Alcuin's Recreational Mathematics examines the problems in the Propositiones in easy-to-follow language, extracting from them the notions and techniques that today constitute basic mathematics. Each chapter discusses Alcuin's problems more broadly, and ends with ten exploratory puzzles based on Alcuin's original problems and related themes. Answers and detailed solutions are included at the back. Alcuin's Recreational Mathematics demonstrates how Alcuin's Propositiones puts basic mathematical thinking on display via ingenious problems that often require outside-of-the-box thinking, constituting an original and imaginative investigation of mathematics in its essence.Editorial Reviews
Review
"Throughout the book, the writing style is entirely non-technical, and accessible with high-school level knowledge of mathematics. A large majority of the cited references comes from recreational mathematics sources." -- M. Bona, Choice
About the Author
Marcel Danesi, Professor Emeritus Anthropology, University of Toronto
Professor Marcel Danesi is Professor Emeritus of linguistic anthropology at the University of Toronto. He directed the Program in Semiotics and, together with various cognitive scientists and mathematicians, founded the CogSci Center for the study of mathematics and mind at the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences. He has published considerably in several areas of recreational mathematics and mathematics education. His research examines the relationship between mathematical cognition, language, and the arts.
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PDF, EPUB | 2 MB | 2025-12-07
