Martin Aigner, Günter M. Ziegler

eBook, PDF

Proofs from THE BOOK (eBook, PDF)

Beschreibung

PaulErdos ? likedtotalkaboutTheBook,inwhichGodmaintainstheperfect proofsformathematicaltheorems,followingthedictumofG. H. Hardythat there is no permanent place for ugly mathematics. Erdos ? also said that you need not believe in God but, as a mathematician, you should believe in The Book. A few years ago, we suggested to him to write up a ?rst (and very modest) approximation to The Book. He was enthusiastic about the idea and, characteristically, went to work immediately, ?lling page after page with his suggestions. Our book was supposed to appear in March 1998 as a present to Erdos ? ' 85th birthday. With Paul's unfortunate death in the summer of 1996, he is not listed as a co-author. Instead this book is dedicated to his memory. ? Paul Erdos We have no de?nition or characterization of what constitutes a proof from The Book: all we offer here is the examples that we have selected, h- ing that our readers will share our enthusiasm about brilliant ideas, clever insights and wonderful observations. We also hope that our readers will enjoy this despite the imperfections of our exposition. The selection is to a ? great extent in?uencedby Paul Erdos himself. A largenumberof the topics were suggested by him, and many of the proofs trace directly back to him, or were initiated by his supreme insight in asking the right question or in makingthe rightconjecture. So to a largeextentthisbookre?ectstheviews of Paul Erdos ? as to what should be considered a proof from The Book.

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Autor

Martin Aigner received his Ph.D. from the University of Vienna and has been professor of mathematics at the Freie Universität Berlin since 1974. He has published in various fields of combinatorics and graph theory and is the author of several monographs on discrete mathematics, among them the Springer books Combinatorial Theory and A Course on Enumeration. Martin Aigner is a recipient of the 1996 Lester R. Ford Award for mathematical exposition of the Mathematical Association of America MAA. Günter M. Ziegler received his Ph.D. from M.I.T. and has been professor of mathematics in Berlin - first at TU Berlin, now at Freie Universität - since 1995. He has published in discrete mathematics, geometry, topology, and optimization, including the Lectures on Polytopes with Springer, as well as "Do I Count? Stories from Mathematics". Günter M. Ziegler is a recipient of the 2006 Chauvenet Prize of the MAA for his expository writing and the 2008 Communicator award ofthe German Science Foundation. Martin Aigner and Günter M. Ziegler have started their work on Proofs from THE BOOK in 1995 together with Paul Erdös. The first edition of this book appeared in 1998 - it has since been translated into 13 languages: Brazilian, Chinese, German, Farsi, French, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
• Seitenzahl: 274
• Erscheinungstermin: 8. Januar 2010
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9783642008566
• Artikelnr.: 37729982

Rezensionen

"This book by Aigner and Ziegler, now in its fifth edition, seeks to pay homage to the late Paul Erdõs by attempting to provide an approximation of 'The Book.' ... Throughout, illustrations and figures are used to support the arguments in the main text; these can greatly help the readability of the proofs, especially for novices like me. ... the book is a marvelous project and this new edition provides a good amount of fresh material." (Harry Strange, Computing Reviews, March, 2015)