Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 516.009
EAN: 9780684865249
ISBN: 0684865246
Label: Free Press
Manufacturer: Free Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: 2002-04-09
Publisher: Free Press
Studio: Free Press

Through Euclid's Window Leonard Mlodinow brilliantly and delightfully leads us on a journey through five revolutions in geometry, from the Greek concept of parallel lines to the latest notions of hyperspace. Here is an altogether new, refreshing, alternative history of math revealing how simple questions anyone might ask about space -- in the living room or in some other galaxy -- have been the hidden engine of the highest achievements in science and technology.

Based on Mlodinow's extensive historical research; his studies alongside colleagues such as Richard Feynman and Kip Thorne; and interviews with leading physicists and mathematicians such as Murray Gell-Mann, Edward Witten, and Brian Greene, Euclid's Window is an extraordinary blend of rigorous, authoritative investigation and accessible, good-humored storytelling that makes a stunningly original argument asserting the primacy of geometry. For those who have looked through Euclid's Window, no space, no thing, and no time will ever be quite the same.

Customer Rating:
Summary: "The book of nature is written in mathematics" Galileo
Comment: "The book of nature is written in mathematics." Galileo

If writing around 1632 Galileo was right that the book of nature is written mathematics then Leonard Mlodinow's book is a kind of Cliff's Notes version.

Mlodinow is a highly experienced writer who collaborated with Oxford's Stephen Hawking when they wrote A Briefer History of Time and his understanding of the material as well as his ability to write accessibly both abound in this work which traces mathematics from the time of Euclid to its present place of prominence on the frontlines of string theory.

Along the way, Mlodinow gives biographies of some of the critical figures like Euclid himself, Descartes, Gauss, Einstein and finally Ed Witten...interestingly enough who works out of the same Institute for Advanced Study that Einstein worked out of in the years prior to his demise.

What makes the study so fascinating is that it tracks a body of study...mathematics...which endeavors to describe reality. In the beginning the story started with Euclid and his fifth postulate...the assertion that parallel lines don't meet.

While it's true that Euclid's postulate produced a self consistent mathematical system, it's also true that eventually (and by eventually I mean like over two thousand years later) it was discovered that you can create yet another self consistent mathematical system which says that parallel lines do meet.

In other words, Euclid created a ruler which is great for measuring flat spaces but later mathematicians in collaborative effort created a special bendable ruler which can measure curved spaces...like a ball.

The significance of this later discovery was made all too obvious when Albert Einstein asserted that gravity bends space...making it more curved and less flat.

So as can be seen the story here is an important one which tells us nothing less than the true emerging story of the universe in which we live and its origins.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Euclid's Window - A highly enjoyable walk through the Math Timeline!
Comment: Having a lifelong interest in 2 and 3D "geometry", this walk down memory lane into the future of mathematical theory and application was most informative, enlightening and a learning experience. Being introduced to many personalities old and new such as Edward Witten was a real treat! Mlodinow's approach caused me to think and ponder and his humorous style and personal experiences kept me very interested! I cannot wait to finish "The Drunkard's Walk".

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Charlemagne's back to the future version
Comment: I like math and I am a computer's science teacher in Brazil. But when I read that Dominicans and Franciscans sent teachers to Charlemagne's church schools I became disapointed with this book. The author is very weak in History of the Church. I recomended to him, Kenneth Scott Latourette's book: "History of Christianity".

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Great overall Math History Lesson for Dummies
Comment: This book is well-written, easy to follow for the most part. I really enjoyed the history of the math greats and the tidbits surrounding their lives. The Alexandria information was the most interesting to me. Miodinow was aiming for the middle-of-the-road math meddler and hit the target. It inspired me (and challenged me) to search deeper into math literature - and my journey continues...

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Customer Rating:
Summary: A Luminous Book
Comment: This luminous book offers the rare combination of serious scientific contemplation and reader-friendly accessibility.

Starting with the mathematicians and geometers of antiquity, Mlodinow traces the progress of rational thought -- and irrational numbers -- from before Euclid's elucidation of the Elements of geometry to the possibilities which still wait for us to reveal them -- from "A point is that which has no part" straight up to the equally puzzling notion that space and time may only be shadowy hints of some more fully flowering, if abstract, function of mathematics on another plane of reality. Sound like science fiction? Rest assured that Mlodinow has both feet planted square on terra firma. The paradoxes and upsets of his discipline are not lost on the author -- nor, indeed, are the ironies and jokes of history (say what you like about death, but it was the decidedly un-mystical necessity of taxation which launched geometry as a scholarly pursuit in ancient Egypt) -- but the author reminds his reader at various points of the dangers of assuming too readily that any given idea is worthless, too far-out, or obviously and intuitively wrong. Intuition, as it turns out, resists and rebels against much of what has become higher learning in the fields of mathematics and physics.

Mlodinow's dedication to the subject matter at hand matches in beautiful, if heartbreaking, counterpoint to the obscurity in which many of the scholars he discusses labored. Drawing not only on the work of famous theoreticians like Einstein and Hawking, but also on essays and ideas buried in forgotten papers and musty appendices, the author gives full credit wherever it may be due. In the process, whether by design or accident, Mlodinow imparts an even more valuable lesson: the ease with which scientific knowledge can be lost, sometimes for millennia. If Artistotle knew, nearly 2,500 years ago, that the planet must be round, why do we still hear that Columbus' sailors were terrified of sailing off the edge of a flat Earth? (This story in itself is almost certainly apocryphal.) If primitive versions of the Theory of Evolution were kicking around in ancient Greece, how is it we still face voids of serious scientific credibility in modern-day Kansas? Regrettably, superstition, fear, politics, and the manipulation of knowledge -- who gets it and who pays the price for seeking too much of it -- is also part of the history of geometry, as it is part of the history of science in general.

Your reviewer himself studied a fair amount of the history of mathematics and physics in the Western World (starting, in fact, with Euclid, and progressing then through Ptolemy, Apollonius, Descartes, Newton, et al, right up through Einstein and Minkowski) and found certain parts of the curriculum cheerless, if not downright appalling. What a relief and a joy, then, to find Euclid's Window not only concise and readily understandable, but effervescent as well. Author Mlodinow clearly enjoys the subject matter and -- more importantly -- enjoys imparting it to others. As a writer and a teacher, Mlodinow demonstrates that he is gifted and enthusiastic.

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