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A Certain Ambiguity : A Mathematical Novel / Gaurav Suri, Hartosh Singh Bal.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextPublisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2010]Copyright date: ©2010Edition: With a New foreword by Keith DevlinDescription: 1 online resource (296 p.) : 56 line illus. 4 tablesContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780691146010
  • 9781400834778
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 510 22
LOC classification:
  • QA99
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Foreword -- Authors' Note -- Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2. -- Chapter 3. -- Chapter 4. -- Chapter 5. -- Chapter 6. -- Chapter 7. -- Chapter 8. -- Epilogue -- Notes & (A Short) Bibliography -- Acknowledgments
Summary: While taking a class on infinity at Stanford in the late 1980s, Ravi Kapoor discovers that he is confronting the same mathematical and philosophical dilemmas that his mathematician grandfather had faced many decades earlier--and that had landed him in jail. Charged under an obscure blasphemy law in a small New Jersey town in 1919, Vijay Sahni is challenged by a skeptical judge to defend his belief that the certainty of mathematics can be extended to all human knowledge--including religion. Together, the two men discover the power--and the fallibility--of what has long been considered the pinnacle of human certainty, Euclidean geometry. As grandfather and grandson struggle with the question of whether there can ever be absolute certainty in mathematics or life, they are forced to reconsider their fundamental beliefs and choices. Their stories hinge on their explorations of parallel developments in the study of geometry and infinity--and the mathematics throughout is as rigorous and fascinating as the narrative and characters are compelling and complex. Moving and enlightening, A Certain Ambiguity is a story about what it means to face the extent--and the limits--of human knowledge.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781400834778

Frontmatter -- Foreword -- Authors' Note -- Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2. -- Chapter 3. -- Chapter 4. -- Chapter 5. -- Chapter 6. -- Chapter 7. -- Chapter 8. -- Epilogue -- Notes & (A Short) Bibliography -- Acknowledgments

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

While taking a class on infinity at Stanford in the late 1980s, Ravi Kapoor discovers that he is confronting the same mathematical and philosophical dilemmas that his mathematician grandfather had faced many decades earlier--and that had landed him in jail. Charged under an obscure blasphemy law in a small New Jersey town in 1919, Vijay Sahni is challenged by a skeptical judge to defend his belief that the certainty of mathematics can be extended to all human knowledge--including religion. Together, the two men discover the power--and the fallibility--of what has long been considered the pinnacle of human certainty, Euclidean geometry. As grandfather and grandson struggle with the question of whether there can ever be absolute certainty in mathematics or life, they are forced to reconsider their fundamental beliefs and choices. Their stories hinge on their explorations of parallel developments in the study of geometry and infinity--and the mathematics throughout is as rigorous and fascinating as the narrative and characters are compelling and complex. Moving and enlightening, A Certain Ambiguity is a story about what it means to face the extent--and the limits--of human knowledge.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Jul 2021)