Mathematics and culture 2. Proceedings of the conference, Venice, Italy, 1998. (Q4948700)

This is a collection of essays delivered by participants of the Second Congress on Mathematics and Culture held in Venice in 1998 which is some continuation of another conference of this type held in 1997 (see the preceding review Zbl 0947.00005). The present volume consists of 16 contributions, all being written in Italian, with the following headings (authors in parentheses): Mathematics today (E. Vesentini); Nature taken literally (J.-M. Lévy-Leblond); Carciopholus Romanus (M. Emmer); The notation of the invisible -- a pretext between mathematics and literature (F. Vitelli); Fermat's Last Theorem -- the scientific tale of the century (S. Singh); Divulging mathematics in a newspaper? (U. Bottazzini); Mathematical research and divulgation (S. Di Sieno); Mathematics and mass media -- desirable errors? (M. Emmer); The Devine Proportion of Luca Pacioli and his CD-Rom (F. Bonnelli and F. Ghione); From blackboard to computer (G. M. Todesco); Mathematics, technology, net (M. Emmer); The mathematical community and the organization of research (A. Figà-Talamanca); Mathematics and technology on the threshold of 2000 (C. Pedrini); The sophist -- the genesis of formal arguments in philosophy and mathematics (L. Borzacchini); The well-tempered harpsichord (P. Odifreddi); Music and mathematics (R. Vlad). All contributions are again extremely illuminating, and the reviewer sincerely hopes that this series of conferences will be continued. The proceedings will provide a very rewarding reading for every mathematician who is not just satisfied playing with the usual general abstract nonsense, but wants to look beyond the horizon of his field of specialization. \{The articles of this volume will not be indexed individually.\}