Prelude to Mathematics

Prelude to Mathematics"No mathematician can be a complete mathematician unless he is also something of a poet." K. Weierstrass In this lively and stimulating account, noted mathematician and educator W. W. Sawyer (Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto) defines mathematics as "the classification and study of all possible patterns." It is a broad definition, but one that seems appropriate to the great scope and depth of the topic. Indeed, mathematics seems to have few

An oft-cited resource and a classic of its genre

Exercises appear at the end of each chapter

categorical imperative

these portraits are legendary

Reprint of the 1890 edition

Commander Lightoller

and a score of other books of mathematical recreations

a profound historian of religion

space physics

unconventional detectives

formal designs from the primal to the highly intricate

reduced or altered at will