Euclid In The Rainforest: Discovering Universal Truth In Logic And Math

Mazur (mathematics, Marlboro College), like many a mathematician before him, seeks the truth. How he goes about it is to examine three kinds of logic, those from the ancient Greeks, the strange logic of infinity, and the everyday, practical, plausible logic that basically drives most scientific inquiry today. In a series of 16 zippy chapters, Mazur looks into what logic actually is and how and when it shows up, the various configurations of infinity as they strike such disparate surfaces as set theory and irrational numbers, and the ordinary, everyday logic that underlies the math that may or may not reflect the real world. Mazur's appendices double as very well-explained exercises.