000			cam a22 4500
999			_c28580 _d28580
008			180327b xxu||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020			_a9780691175836
082			_a510.922 _bHAR
100			_aHarris, Michael
245			_aMathematics without apologies : portrait of a problematic vocation
260			_bPrinceton University Press, _c2017 _aNew Jersey:
300			_axxii, 438 p. _bill. _c25 cm.
365			_aUSD _b22.95/ Rs. 1526.18
520			_aDrawing on his personal experiences and obsessions as well as the thoughts and opinions of mathematicians from Archimedes and Omar Khayyám to such contemporary giants as Alexander Grothendieck and Robert Langlands, Michael Harris reveals the charisma and romance of mathematics as well as its darker side. In this portrait of mathematics as a community united around a set of common intellectual, ethical, and existential challenges, he touches on a wide variety of questions, such as: Are mathematicians to blame for the 2008 financial crisis? How can we talk about the ideas we were born too soon to understand? And how should you react if you are asked to explain number theory at a dinner party? What do pure mathematicians do, and why do they do it? Looking beyond the conventional answers--for the sake of truth, beauty, and practical applications--this book offers an eclectic panorama of the lives and values and hopes and fears of mathematicians in the twenty-first century, assembling material from a startlingly diverse assortment of scholarly, journalistic, and pop culture sources.
650			_aMathematics
650			_aMathematicians
650			_aNumber Theory
650			_aMegaloprepeia
650			_aMathematical Dream
942			_2ddc _cBK