New Book: New Horizons in Geometry

New Horizons in Geometry by Tom Apostol and Mamikon Mnatsakanian Dolciani Mathematical Expositions Series New Horizons in Geometry represents the fruits of 15 years of work in geometry by a remarkable team of prize-winning authors—Tom Apostol and Mamikon  Mnatsakanian. It serves as a capstone to an amazing collaboration. Apostol and Mamikon provide fresh and powerful insights into geometry that requires only modest background in mathematics. Using new and intuitively rich methods, they give beautifully illustrated proofs of results, the majority of which are new, and frequently develop extensions of familiar theorems that are often surprising and sometimes astounding. It is mathematical exposition of the highest order. The hundreds of full color illustrations by Mamikon are visually enticing and provide great motivation to read further and savor the wonderful results. Lengths, areas, and volumes of curves, surfaces, and solids are explored from a visually captivating perspective. It is an understatement to say that Apostol and Mamikon have breathed new life into geometry.

Available now in the MAA Store.

New Book: A Guide to Groups, Rings, and Fields

A Guide to Group, Rings, and Fields by Fernando Q. Gouvêa This Guide offers a concise overview of the theory of groups, rings, and fields at the graduate level, emphasizing those aspects that are useful in other parts of mathematics. It focuses on the main ideas and how they hang together. It will be useful to both students and professionals. In addition to the standard material on groups, rings, modules, fields, and Galois theory, the book includes discussions of other important topics that are often omitted in the standard graduate course, including linear groups, group representations, the structure of Artinian rings, projective, injective and flat modules, Dedekind domains, and central simple algebras. All of the important theorems are discussed, without proofs but often with a discussion of the intuitive ideas behind those proofs. Those looking for a way to review and refresh their basic algebra will benefit from reading this Guide, and it will also serve as a ready reference for mathematicians who make use of algebra in their work. Available in the MAA Store and the MAA eBooks Store. Use coupon code 1563872069 to receive 10% off your entire purchase. This coupon is good only in the MAA eBooks Store. Offer Expires:  December 31, 2012

In the Dark on the Sunny Side A Memoir of an Out-of-Sight Mathematician by Larry W. Baggett

In the Dark on the Sunny Side: A Memoir of an Out-of-Sight Mathematician by Larry W. Baggett is now available in the MAA Store. 

Misfortune struck on June day in 1944, when a five-year-old boy was forever blinded following an accident he suffered with a paring knife. Few people become internationally recognized research mathematicians and famously successful university professors of that erudite subject, and not surprisingly a minuscule number of those few are visually impaired. In the Dark on the Sunnyside tells the story of one such individual. The author was main-streamed in school long before main-streaming was common. On almost every occasion he was the first blind person involved in whatever was going on - the first blind student enrolled in the Orlando Public School System, the first blind student admitted to Davidson College, and the first blind doctoral student in mathematics at the University of Washington.

Despite the bad luck that June day, there was good fortune ahead. In addition to all the remarkable people who helped Baggett to join and prosper quite normally in the sighted world, he also had two "inward" outlets that made his life not just easier but gave it meaning, pleasure, and excitement. One was music and the other was mathematics. He may lie awake at night analyzing the chord changes to a jazz tune like "'Round Midnight", or he may be working out the details of the proof of the Spectral Theorem for an unbounded operator.

In addition to describing the various successes and failures Baggett experienced living in the dark on the sunny side, he displays his love of math and music by interspersing short musings on both topics, such as discussing how to figure out how many dominoes are in a set, the intricacies of jazz chord progressions, and the mysterious Comma of Pythagoras.

Get your copy of In the Dark on the Sunny Side: A Memoir of an Out-of-Sight Mathematician by Larry W. Baggett  in the MAA Store.