Sleight of mind : 75 ingenious paradoxes in mathematics, physics, and philosophy

Resource Information

The work Sleight of mind : 75 ingenious paradoxes in mathematics, physics, and philosophy represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Colby College Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Sleight of mind : 75 ingenious paradoxes in mathematics, physics, and philosophy

Title remainder

75 ingenious paradoxes in mathematics, physics, and philosophy

Statement of responsibility

Matt Cook

Creator

• Cook, Matt, (Matthew,)
• Cook, Matt, (Matthew,)

Author

• Cook, Matt, (Matthew,)
• Cook, Matt, (Matthew,)

Subject

• Instructional and educational works
• Instructional and educational works
• Mathematical physics
• Mathematical physics
• Mathematical physics
• Mathematik
• Paradox
• Illustrated works
• Paradox
• Paradoxon
• Philosophie
• Physik
• Paradox
• Illustrated works
• Illustrated works
• Instructional and educational works

Genre

• Instructional and educational works
• Illustrated works

Language

eng

Summary

"Paradox is a sophisticated kind of magic trick. A magician's purpose is to create the appearance of impossibility, to pull a rabbit from an empty hat. Yet paradox doesn't require tangibles, like rabbits or hats. Paradox works in the abstract, with words and concepts and symbols, to create the illusion of contradiction. There are no contradictions in reality, but there can appear to be. In Sleight of Mind, Matt Cook and a few collaborators dive deeply into more than 75 paradoxes in mathematics, physics, philosophy, and the social sciences. As each paradox is discussed and resolved, Cook helps readers discover the meaning of knowledge and the proper formation of concepts—and how reason can dispel the illusion of contradiction. The journey begins with za most ingenious paradoxy from Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance. Readers will then travel from Ancient Greece to cutting-edge laboratories, encounter infinity and its different sizes, and discover mathematical impossibilities inherent in elections. They will tackle conundrums in probability, induction, geometry, and game theory; perform zsupertasksy; build apparent perpetual motion machines; meet twins living in different millennia; explore the strange quantum world—and much more." --

Assigning source

Provided by publisher

Cataloging source

DLC

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography