Mathematics and the Search for Knowledge

By Morris Kline

Book Overview

Mad River Road:After spending a year in prison, Ralph Fisher has explicit plans for his first night of freedom: tonight, someone will be held accountable. He goes to murderous lengths to obtain the address of his former wife - the woman he blames for his fate and against whom he has sworn vengeance. Determined to bring her to his idea of justice, Ralph's next step is to travel from Florida's sandy beaches to Dayton, Ohio, where his ex-wife is struggling to make ends meet on Mad River Road.Also in Florida, Jamie Kellogg wakes from an agonizing nightmare of her mother's funeral, and assesses her life: a pretty but unaccomplished twenty-nine-year-old woman in a dead-end job, with an ex-husband in Atlanta, a married lover in the hospital, and a virtual stranger in her bed. But this stranger is everything the previous men in her life weren't: tender, attentive, and adventurous. After convincing Jamie to quit her miserable job and ditch her judgmental, perfectionist sister, he proposes a romantic getaway. While Jamie wonders if this thrilling man might finally be her Prince Charming, they plan a road trip to visit his son, who lives with his mother on a street called Mad River Road...Heartstopper:Welcome to Torrance, Florida. Population: 4,160. As Sheriff John Weber would attest, the deadliest predators to date in his tiny hamlet were the alligators lurking in the nearby swamps. But that was before someone abducted and murdered a runaway teenage girl...and before the disappearance of popular and pretty Liana Martin. The pattern is chilling to Sandy Crosbie, the town's new high school English teacher. With a marriage on the rocks, thanks to her husband's online affairs, and a beautiful teenage daughter to protect, Sandy wishes she'd never come to the seemingly quiet town with shocking depths of scandal, sex, and brutality roiling beneath its surface. And as Sheriff Weber digs up more questions than answers in a dead-end investigation, one truth emerges: the prettiest ones are being targeted, the heartstoppers. And this killer intends to give them their due....Alternating between the chilling journal entries of a cold-blooded murderer and the sizzling scandals of small-town life, Heartstopper is Joy Fielding's most exciting novel of suspense yet.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195042301
• ISBN13: 9780195042306
• Release Date: November 1986
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Great "Philosophy of Science" book

This is by far one of the best science books for the layman I have ever read, and I enjoyed reading it. I especially liked the discussions of the cultural context inwhich Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton worked. The break that Copernicus made with common sense AND religous dogma is so great as to boggle the mind even today. And Kepler's determination that the Earth's orbit is an ellipse, again defies belief, since it was done before calculus was invented, or the law of Gravity determined. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good science read.

A fine introduction, but...

This is a good, basic introduction to the history of math, but its promise of engaging philosophical issues falls short. It's not until Chapter XII that Kline really engages the philsophy of mathematics, but then attempts to cover a lot of ground in a short span, and the distinctions and groupings Kline forms of different thinkers' conceptions of mathematics leads to strange bedfellows; particularly Kline's claim that Wittgenstein is basically a mathematical empiricist and yet believes that mathematics is a human creation. To my mind there's an inherent contradiction there. Most bothersome, however is the almost entire lack of proper footnotes. Some of the most interesting quotes will be difficult (if not impossible) to find b/c Kline only tells us the author of the quote and oftentimes doesn't even include the author in the bibliography! In particular I'm thinking of a fascinating quote from Evariste Galois - Kline gives no indication of where I can find it! Still, I have to give this book a 4 just b/c it's a good introduction that reads rather quickly.

An excellent history of both Mathematics and Physics

By reading this short book, you will absorb a good foundation in both Mathematics and Physics. You will also acquire an infinite respect for Newton, Maxwell, and Einstein. In all cases, these geniuses developed theories regarding natural phenomena that often could not so readily be observed (if at all).

Excellent, esp. for non-mathematicians (like me!)

Morris Kline's thesis in this extraordinary book is stated clearly in the final words of his preface, and then presented through a historical survey throughout. Here are the key words, "Contrary to the impression students acquire in school, mathematics is not just a series of techniques. Mathematics tells us what we have never known or even suspected about notable phenomena and in some instances even contradicts perception. It is the essence of our knowledge of the physical world. It not only transcends perception but outclasses it."As far as I'm concerned, Kline makes his case. And I am one of those who received the erroneous impression in school that he mentions -- of course, I never managed to pay much attention in math classes, but that was only partially my fault.If you are at all like me, and suspect you might have missed something in your misspent youth, get this book.