Bøger af Richard Guy

To many laymen, mathematicians appear to be problem solvers, people who do "e;hard sums"e;. Even inside the profession we dassify ourselves as either theorists or problem solvers. Mathematics is kept alive, much more than by the activities of either dass, by the appearance of a succession of unsolved problems, both from within mathematics-itself and from the in- creasing number of disciplines where it is applied. Mathematics often owes more to those who ask questions than to those who answer them. The solu- tion of a problem may stifte interest in the area around it. But "e;Fermat's Last Theorem"e;, because it is not yet a theorem, has generated a great deal of "e;good"e; mathematics, whether goodness is judged by beauty, by depth or byapplicability. To pose good unsolved problems is a difficult art. The balance between triviality and hopeless unsolvability is delicate. There are many simply stated problems which experts tell us are unlikely to be solved in the next generation. But we have seen the Four Color Conjecture settled, even ifwe don't live long enough to leam the status of the Riemann and Goldbach hypotheses, of twin primes or Mersenne primes, or of odd perfeet numbers. On the other hand, "e;unsolved"e; problems may not be unsolved at all, or may be much more tractable than was at first thought.

Journey through the world of numbers with the foremost authorities and writers in the field. John Horton Conway and Richard K. Guy are two of the most accomplished, creative, and engaging number theorists any mathematically minded reader could hope to encounter. In this book, Conway and Guy lead the reader on an imaginative, often astonishing tour of the landscape of numbers. The Book of Numbers is just that - an engagingly written, heavily illustrated introduction to the fascinating, sometimes surprising properties of numbers and number patterns. The book opens up a world of topics, theories, and applications, exploring intriguing aspects of real numbers, systems, arrays and sequences, and much more. Readers will be able to use figures to figure out figures, rub elbows with famous families of numbers, prove the primacy of primes, fathom the fruitfulness of fractions, imagine imaginary numbers, investigate the infinite and infinitesimal and more.

Mathematics is kept alive by the appearance of new unsolved problems, problems posed from within mathematics itself, and also from the increasing number of disciplines where mathematics is applied. This book provides a steady supply of easily understood, if not easily solved, problems which can be considered in varying depths by mathematicians at all levels of mathematical maturity.For this new edition, the author has included new problems on symmetric and asymmetric primes, sums of higher powers, Diophantine m-tuples, and Conway's RATS and palindromes. The author has also included a useful new feature at the end of several of the sections: lists of references to OEIS, Neil Sloane's Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences. About the First Edition:"...many talented young mathematicians will write their first papers starting out from problems found in this book."- András Sárközi, MathSciNet

Brother Bill Frazier - A living testament to God's Love and Grace Bill Frazier showed up unannounced at a race in Talladega in 1970 with home-built Chapel-on-wheels, and like a missionary in a foreign land, started to minister to the race drivers, the crews and their families. Person-by-person, and race-by-race, Bill Frazier earned the trust and respect of people who lived a fast paced life, and were considered by many "church-goers" beyond redemption. And Brother Bill, as the racers came to call him, found that there were many God fearing men in the racing world, including the sports super-stars. Men like Richard Petty and Bobby Allison, who quickly adopted Bill Frazier's Ministry, and helped it to grow. But the story of Bill Frazier's life is a story of battling personal demons. Bill was an unlikely candidate when God rescued him from a turbulent life style, as Bill became living proof that "it's through Him that I can do all things". Bill's effectiveness at establishing a full time ministry in Stock Car racing is still appreciated by many. As for Bill Frazier's style, Richard Petty put it best; "Bill came in with his people, not above them. The only difference between Bill and the crews in the pits, was that Bill would get up and preach on Sundays"