...a companion blog to "Math-Frolic," specifically for interviews, book reviews, weekly-linkfests, and longer posts or commentary than usually found at the Math-Frolic site.

*********************************************************************************************
"Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty – a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show." ---Bertrand Russell (1907) Rob Gluck

"I have come to believe, though very reluctantly, that it [mathematics] consists of tautologies. I fear that, to a mind of sufficient intellectual power, the whole of mathematics would appear trivial, as trivial as the statement that a four-legged animal is an animal." ---Bertrand Russell (1957)

******************************************************************** Rob Gluck

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Caption Contest!!!


Sorting through some bookshelves last week found a few (paperback) math books I have duplicate copies of and don't need, so figured I'd give away to some lucky reader! Not terribly recent, but hey, mathematics is timeless (and in this instance, free)!! The four books are:

*********************
"The Mathematics Of Life" by Ian Stewart (2011)
"Mathematics: The New Golden Age" by Keith Devlin (1988)
"Beyond Numeracy" by John Allen Paulos (1991)
"The Kingdom of Infinite Number" by Bryan Bunch (2000)
*********************
     
I've seen "Caption Contests" work well at other blogs, so will give it a try here.
Send in, via the comments, your caption(s) (limit 3 per person) for the below image, and I'll award the books to whoever's wit most moves me.
Depending how many good punchlines I get, not sure if all books will go to one person or be divided among top couple of entries (will let contest run around 3 weeks). Start your keyboards:


                         (the image has traveled around the Web for some years; I'd give credit, but not sure what it's origin is...?)

[and sorry, but probably only willing to ship books within US or at least N. America; though others can enter for sheer glory of possible win! ;-)]

[Sunday, Dec. 15 will be the last day for entries.]



Posted by at
Labels: ,

3 comments:

  1. AnonymousNovember 24, 2013 at 3:59 PM

    That's all for today, class. Next week, we'll start working on statistical tables.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Roslyn MillerNovember 26, 2013 at 9:49 AM

    When they said they were giving me the math chair, I thought I was going to be the new department head.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "Shecky Riemann"December 15, 2013 at 12:31 PM

    Well, so much for caption contests! :-( Maybe the book-rewards weren't very enticing, or that particular photo has been around too long, or perhaps I should've just used this photo instead for more inspiration ;-)
    http://img66.imageshack.us/img66/493/21589878010b59faf683ohe7.jpg

    In any event, I did enjoy both entries that arrived, so I'll just split the books to both of you brave souls who took time to enter… let me know which books you prefer and will try to find some equitable division.

    Let me know (via email: sheckyrATgmailDOTcom) what mailing addresses you each have… looks to me like Xian is based outside the US -- do you have someone within US I can ship to???? since I wasn't intending to ship overseas...
    And thanks for participating!

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)