What is the best way to photograph a speeding bullet? Why does light
move through glass in the least amount of time possible? How can lost hikers
find their way out of a forest? What will rainbows look like in the future? Why
do soap bubbles have a shape that gives them the least area?
By combining the mathematical history of extrema with contemporary examples,
Paul J. Nahin answers these intriguing questions and more in this engaging and
witty volume. He shows how life often works at the extremes with values
becoming as small (or as large) as possible and how mathematicians over the
centuries have struggled to calculate these problems of minima and maxima. From
medieval writings to the development of modern calculus to the current field of
optimization, Nahin tells the story of Dido's problem, Fermat and Descartes,
Torricelli, Bishop Berkeley, Goldschmidt, and more. Along the way, he explores
how to build the shortest bridge possible between two towns, how to shop for
garbage bags, how to vary speed during a race, and how to make the perfect
basketball shot.
Written in a conversational tone and requiring only an early undergraduate
level of mathematical knowledge, When Least Is Best is full of fascinating
examples and ready-to-try-at-home experiments. This is the first book on
optimization written for a wide audience, and math enthusiasts of all
backgrounds will delight in its lively topics.
About
the Author
Paul
Nahin was born in California, and did all his schooling there (Brea-Olinda High
1958, Stanford BS 1962, Caltech MS 1963, and - as a Howard Hughes Staff
Doctoral Fellow - UC/Irvine PhD 1972, with all degrees in electrical
engineering). (The lovely lady in the photo is his wife of 49 years, Patricia.)
He worked as a digital logic designer and radar systems engineer in the
Southern California aerospace industry until 1971, when he started his academic
career. He has taught at Harvey Mudd College, the Naval Postgraduate School,
and the Universities of New Hampshire (where he is now emeritus professor of
electrical engineering) and Virginia. In between and here-and-there he spent a
post-doctoral year at the Naval Research Laboratory, and a summer and a year at
the Center for Naval Analyses and the Institute for Defense Analyses as a
weapon systems analyst, all in Washington, DC. He has published a couple dozen
short science fiction stories in ANALOG, OMNI, and TWILIGHT ZONE magazines, and
has written 11 books on mathematics and physics, published by IEEE Press,
Springer, and the university presses of Johns Hopkins and Princeton.
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