Ever wonder how mathematics applies to basketball, black holes, money, smart phones, or sudoko? The Library's newest online encyclopedia The Encyclopedia of Mathematics & Society looks at the effect of mathematics on hundreds of everyday topics.
The Encyclopedia of Mathematics & Society includes 490 wildly interesting and often entertaining articles that fall into these broad categories:
Prepare to be distracted by chapters investigating the mathematics behind bees, origami, crochet and knitting, highways, sacred geometry, and tic-tac-toe.
This resource is also a great introduction to math concepts for the non-mathematically inclined. A chapter on "the birthday problem," for example, presents a classic probability question - "Given that there is some number of people (n) in a room, what is the probability that at least two of them share the same birthday?" - in terms that most will understand.
The Encyclopedia of Mathematics & Society is available via Primo and the Online Reference Shelf.
For more information, contact:
Liaison Librarian for Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, and Legal Studies
Ext. 35061
University of Waterloo Library
200 University Avenue West
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1
519 888 4883
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