scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1404463

Authors Anatole Beck, Michael N. Bleicher, Donald W. Crowe

Publication date 21 February 2000

The book was originally published in 1969 (and was printed several times since). For a review of the 2nd ed. (1970) see Zbl 0211.00101. It consists of 6 excursions, which, as the authors put it, provide ``a real introduction to the mathematical world. Instead, each of the six excursions is a live fragment of mathematics, which conveys to the reader what mathematics is and what mathematicians do. The excursions include Euler's Formula for Polyhedra, and Related Topics; The Search for Perfect Numbers; What is Area?; Exotic Geometries; Games; and What's in a Name (from number systems to continued fractions). The book is fresh and engaging. It must have inspired generations. The subject of this review is ``the Millennium Edition of the book. Instead, mathematics has not stayed still for 32 years. There is naturally plenty to add, rewrite. The Four Color Theorem was proven, for example, while we still read in the book: ``although almost all efforts have been directed toward proving that the answer is yes, it has recently been suggested by some prominent mathematicians that there may in fact be a map, having a large number of regions, which cannot be colored with four colors. One would expect the authors to jump on a rolling away bandwagon of mathematics and bring the text up to date. Instead, they merely added 6.5-page appendix of updates and corrections. Surely, such a minor revision does not measure up to a loud banner of ``The Millennium Edition. Those, who have a copy of one of the five previous printings, need not rush to Internet to open amazon.com ordering page. On the other hand, it is nice that a classic text is once again available to undergraduate college and gifted high school reader.

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