Mathematical Constants

Encyclopedia of Mathematics and its Applications 94

Steven R. Finch

602 pages, parution le 20/10/2003

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Résumé

Famous mathematical constants include the ratio of circular circumference to diameter, pi=3.14 ..., and the natural logarithmic base, e=2.178 ... Students and professionals usually can name at most a few others, but there are many more buried in the literature and awaiting discovery. How do such constants arise, and why are they important? Here Steven Finch provides 136 essays, each devoted to a mathematical constant or a class of constants, from the well known to the highly exotic.

Topics covered include the statistics of continued fractions, chaos in nonlinear systems, prime numbers, sum-free sets, isoperimetric problems, approximation theory, self-avoiding walks and the Ising model (from statistical physics), binary and digital search trees (from theoretical computer science), the Prouhet-Thue-Morse sequence, complex analysis, geometric probability and the traveling salesman problem.

This book will be helpful both to readers seeking information about a specific constant, and to readers who desire a panoramic view of all constants coming from a particular field, for example combinatorial enumeration or geometric optimization. Unsolved problems appear virtually everywhere as well. This is an outstanding scholarly attempt to bring together all significant mathematical constants in one place.

Preface
Notation
Well-known constants
Constants associated with number theory
Constants associated with analytic inequalities
Constants associated with the approximation of functions
Constants associated with enumerating discrete structures
Constants associated with functional iteration
Constants associated with complex analysis
Constants associated with geometry
Table
Index

Caractéristiques techniques

	PAPIER
Éditeur(s)	Cambridge University Press
Auteur(s)	Steven R. Finch
Parution	20/10/2003
Nb. de pages	602
Format	16 x 24
Couverture	Broché
Poids	990g
Intérieur	Noir et Blanc
EAN13	9780521818056
ISBN13	978-0-521-81805-6