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ESSENTIALS OF
MATHEMATICAL
THINKING
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TEXTBOOKS in MATHEMATICS
Series Editors: Al Boggess and Ken Rosen
PUBLISHED TITLES
ABSTRACT ALGEBRA: A GENTLE INTRODUCTION
Gary L. Mullen and James A. Sellers
ABSTRACT ALGEBRA: AN INTERACTIVE APPROACH, SECOND EDITION
William Paulsen
ABSTRACT ALGEBRA: AN INQUIRY-BASED APPROACH
Jonathan K. Hodge, Steven Schlicker, and Ted Sundstrom
ADVANCED LINEAR ALGEBRA
Hugo Woerdeman
ADVANCED LINEAR ALGEBRA
Nicholas Loehr
ADVANCED LINEAR ALGEBRA, SECOND EDITION
Bruce Cooperstein
APPLIED ABSTRACT ALGEBRA WITH MAPLE™ AND MATLAB®, THIRD EDITION
Richard Klima, Neil Sigmon, and Ernest Stitzinger
APPLIED DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS: THE PRIMARY COURSE
Vladimir Dobrushkin
APPLIED DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS WITH BOUNDARY VALUE PROBLEMS
Vladimir Dobrushkin
APPLIED FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS, THIRD EDITION
J. Tinsley Oden and Leszek Demkowicz
A BRIDGE TO HIGHER MATHEMATICS
Valentin Deaconu and Donald C. Pfaff
COMPUTATIONAL MATHEMATICS: MODELS, METHODS, AND ANALYSIS WITH MATLAB® AND MPI,
SECOND EDITION
Robert E. White
A COURSE IN DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS WITH BOUNDARY VALUE PROBLEMS, SECOND EDITION
Stephen A. Wirkus, Randall J. Swift, and Ryan Szypowski
A COURSE IN ORDINARY DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS, SECOND EDITION
Stephen A. Wirkus and Randall J. Swift
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TEXTBOOKS in MATHEMATICS
ESSENTIALS OF
MATHEMATICAL
THINKING
Steven G. Krantz
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CRC Press
Taylor & Francis Group
6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300
Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742
This book contains information obtained from authentic and highly regarded sources. Reasonable
efforts have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the author and publisher cannot
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Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at
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and the CRC Press Web site at
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Table of Contents
Preface xv
1 First Thoughts 1
1.1 What Is Mathematical Thinking? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 How Does Mathematics Differ from Other Disciplines? . . . . 2
1.3 A Sample Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
ix
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x TABLE OF CONTENTS
3 Strategy 49
3.1 It’s All in the Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.2 See and Say . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.3 The Ponzi Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.4 Ham Sandwich Theorems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4 Focus 61
4.1 The Erdős Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.2 Time Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.3 Days of the Week . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
5 Science 69
5.1 A Belt for the Earth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.2 Your Next Breath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
5.3 A Hairy Question . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
5.4 The Motions of the Planets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
5.5 How Big Is Big Data? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
6 Counting 85
6.1 Funny Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
6.2 The Pigeon Flew the Coop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
6.3 Conditional Probability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
6.4 Benford’s Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
6.5 Puzzling Birthdays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
7 Games 109
7.1 How to Count . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
7.2 How to Beat the Lottery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
7.3 The Eudaemonic Pie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
7.4 A Dicey Bet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
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TABLE OF CONTENTS xi
8 Geometry 131
8.1 Thoughts of Pythagoras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
8.2 Symmetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
8.3 Buffon’s Needle Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
8.4 Euler’s Formula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
8.5 Sphere Packing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
8.6 The Platonic Solids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
8.7 Heron’s Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
8.8 A Little Geometric Reasoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
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References 321
Index 327
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Preface
xv
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xvi PREFACE
Steven G. Krantz
St. Louis, Missouri
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Chapter 1
First Thoughts
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Problem 1.1 You are on an island that is populated by two types of people:
truth tellers and liars. See Figure 1.1. When asked a Yes–No question, a
truth teller always tells the truth and a liar always lies. There is no visual
method for telling a truth teller from a liar. What single question could you
ask anyone that you meet on the island to determine whether that person is
a truth teller or a liar?
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Solution: If you ask a direct question such as “Are you a truth teller?”
then a truth teller will answer “Yes” and a liar (who must lie) will also answer
“Yes.” You will get a similar result if you ask “Are you a liar?” Thus an
elementary, direct question provides no basis for differentiation.
Therefore a compound question, such as a conditional, or an “or” ques-
tion, or an “and” question is called for. One of the things that we learn in
a basic logic course is that any question that is of one of these three types
can be reformulated as a question of any one of the other three types (see
[KRA1]). We concentrate on formulating an “if-then” question that will do
the job.
The question that we formulate could be of the form “If it is raining then
what would you say to . . . ” or “If you are a Doctor of Letters then what
would be your answer to . . . .” However it is clear that these conditions have
nothing to do with the matter at hand.
Probably more relevant would be a question of the form “If you were a
truth teller then what would you say to . . . .” Likewise the concluding part
of the question ought to have something to do with the problem that we are
trying to solve. We now try the question
If you are a truth teller then how would you answer the
question, “Are you a liar?”
Now we analyze how the two different types of island inhabitants would
answer this question.
Obviously a truth teller would answer the question “Are you a liar?” by
saying “No.” If you pose the displayed question to a truth teller, then he
will report truthfully on the answer just given, so he/she will say “No.”
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A liar can think just as clearly as a truth teller. He/she also knows that
a truth teller, if asked whether he/she is a liar, will say “No.” But the liar
must lie. So he/she will say “Yes.”
Thus we have found a question to which a truth teller will always answer
“No” and a liar will always answer “Yes.” This certainly gives a means for
differentiating truth tellers from liars, and answers our question.
Exercise: Consider an island with truth tellers, liars, and equivocal people.
Can you cook up a question that will enable you to distinguish these three
types of people?
Exercise: There are two identical doors. Behind one door is the passage to
heaven. Behind the other door is the passage to hell. In front of each door
is a guard. One of these guards is a truth teller and one of the guards is a
liar. You cannot tell visually which is which. What question can you ask
one of the guards to determine which door is which? [This question is due
to Raymond Smullyan.]
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Chapter 2
Diverse Mathematical
Thoughts
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in the early 1980s, when the A & W restaurant chain released a new ham-
burger to rival the McDonald’s Quarter Pounder. With a third-pound of
beef, the A& W burger had more meat than the Quarter Pounder; in taste
tests, customers preferred A & W’s burger. And it was the same price. A
lavish A & W television and radio marketing campaign cited these bene-
fits. Yet, instead of leaping at the great value, customers snubbed it. Only
when the company held customer focus groups did it become clear why. The
Third Pounder presented the American public with a test in fractions. And
we failed. Misunderstanding the value of one-third, customers believed they
were being overcharged. Why, they asked the researchers, should they pay
the same amount for a third of a pound of meat as they did for a quarter-
pound of meat at McDonald’s? The “4” in “1/4,” larger than the “3” in
“1/3,” led them astray. But is this depressing tale true? For verification of
this bizarre story, refer to the 2007 memoir of real estate tycoon A. Alfred
Taubman, who purchased the A & W chain back in the early 1980s. The
author of a New York Times piece on the matter—which is adapted from her
new book, Building a Better Teacher—cited it as her source on Twitter.
Taubman reports as follows. “Of course, not all my creative efforts to
redefine and reenergize A & W were successful. In fact, one experience in
particular still leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. We were aggressively
marketing a one-third-pound hamburger for the same price as a McDonald’s
Quarter Pounder. But despite our best efforts, including first-rate TV and
radio promotional spots, they just weren’t selling. Perplexed, we called in
the renowned market research firm Yankelovich, Skelly, and White to conduct
focus groups and competitive taste tests. Well, it turned out that customers
preferred the taste of our fresh beef over traditional fast-food hockey pucks.
Hands down, we had a better product. But there was a serious problem.
More than half of the participants in the Yankelovich focus groups questioned
the price of our burger.” “Why,” they asked, “should we pay the same
amount for a third of a pound of meat as we do for a quarter-pound of meat
at McDonald’s? You’re overcharging us.” Honestly. People thought a third
of a pound was less than a quarter of a pound. After all, 3 is less than 4!
Several years ago, when gasoline was more than $4 per gallon, one station
in the Midwest started selling gasoline by the liter for $1.25. People just
flocked to the station, and were happy as clams to be getting gas for just
$1.25. When a TV station interviewed the customers and asked them whether
they realized that they were only getting a liter, or just over 1/4 of a gallon,
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for $1.25, the customers were perplexed. A typical reply was, “I don’t care
what units they are using to sell us the gas. It’s only $1.25!!!”
As we have noted elsewhere, much of life is mathematical. It is worth-
while to understand a little mathematics so that we can convince ourselves
that we know what we are doing.
You don’t think too much about it. But, sure enough, you check the stock
market next Wednesday and International Xolotl has gone up. Kowabunga.
A few days later you receive another letter or email from this same guy
that claims that, the following Tuesday, National Potrzebie will go down.
Getting ever more curious, you check the stock market next Tuesday and,
sure enough, National Potrzebie has gone down. Something must be going
on here.
You get four more communications from this New York fellow, one per
week. And each time he makes a prediction about the stock market. And
each time he is right.
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How could this be? This guy must have the stock market sewn up. He
must have the whole situation wrapped around his little finger. But then the
plot thickens.
In the seventh week he sends you a letter or email saying
OK. Now you know what I can do. So now I am going to sell you
my next prediction for $5,000.
Well, $5,000 is a lot of money. But this guy is infallible. How can any-
thing go wrong? You pay him $5,000 and invest $20,000 on whatever he
recommends (play the bull market if he predicts the stock market will go up
and play the bear market if he predicts the stock will go down) and you are
bound to come out a winner. There is practically no risk. It certainly beats
playing the roulette wheel in Vegas (but see Section 7.3). So you send him
the $5,000 and play the stock that he recommends and what happens?
Who knows? He certainly doesn’t care, and you will never hear from him
again. But he got $5,000 from you and from several other suckers as well.
So he made out like a bandit. What is going on here?
What is interesting is that you played the game straight from beginning
to end. You made no logical input into the game. You only observed and
reacted in a logical way. And the guy sending you the prescient messages
was also playing it straight. The scam is that you did not realize what you
were reacting to.
The way that the New Yorker played the game is this. In the first week
he wrote to 640 people. He told half of them that International Xolotl would
go up. And he told half of them that International Xolotl would go down.
Then he watched the board to determine what International Xolotl actually
did. Let us say that it went up. So he discards the 320 names to whom he
predicted that it would go down. And concentrates on the remaining 320 to
whom he would predicted it would go up. Because they are now the believers.
Now, in the next week, he writes to 160 of the remaining suckers and tells
them that National Potrzebie will go up. And he writes to the other 160 and
tells them that it will go down. With half of those he will be right. He keeps
those 160 and discards the others.
So now it is the third week and he is working with 160 marks. He tells
half of them that some stock will go up and half that it will go down. So,
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One should keep in mind that the Old Testament of the Bible was orig-
inally written in Hebrew. Hebrew of course uses a different alphabet from
the Roman alphabet that we use. It is also written from right to left instead
of left to right. So any version of the Bible that we may read will be a trans-
lation, and there are many of those. Hardcore proponents of the Bible code
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work only from the original Hebrew, which was handed down by Moses and
therefore is considered to be definitive.
I was reading a book the other day on school safety. It contained the
passage
Let us use Drosnin’s idea, and look at ELS examples that are spaced four
apart. In the following display, the selected letters are typeset in boldface:
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is the same number of letters as are in the Book of Genesis in the Old
Testament of the Bible). And they ran a computer search on this sample
for ELS. And they found about the same number of hits. This suggests that
there is nothing special about the Book of Genesis.
Others have accused Drosnin of mixing different versions of Hebrew (some
of which have no vowels), and also using various spellings, to enhance his
results. Also it has been said that Drosnin skews the interpretation of his
findings to support the predictive claims that he makes.
Some of Drosnin’s predictions are just plain wrong. In the second volume
of his book [DRO2], he predicts an atomic holocaust that will end the world.
He also predicts that Libya will develop atomic weapons and give them to
terrorists who will attack the United States. Finally Drosnin predicts that
Yasser Arafat will be assassinated by Hamas gunmen. In point of fact, Arafat
died in 2004 of natural causes.
The discussion of the merits of the Bible Code theory continue. It illus-
trates how easily mathematics can be used to mislead people.
Exercise: Given any sentence with 50 characters in it (50 letters from the
alphabet), there is some scheme that will find that sentence encoded in the
Old Testament. It need not be an equidistant letter sequence. It could be
some other polynomially coded encryption method. Explain what this might
mean and give an example.
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1 2 3
and cajoles and bribes the contestant, encouraging the contestant to change
his/her mind and forcing the contestant to become confused over which is
the most desirable door.
What has become known as the “Monty Hall” problem is this: The con-
testant picks a door. For the sake of argument, we say that he/she has picked
Door 3. Before the door is opened, revealing what is behind it, Monty Hall
says “I will now reveal to you what is behind one of the other doors.” Door
1 is opened and there stands a goat. See Figure 2.2. Then Monty Hall says
“Would you like to change your door selection?” Very interesting.
Clearly the contestant will not pick the door that Monty Hall has already
opened (Door 1), since that has a goat behind it. So the issue is whether
the contestant will switch from the currently selected door (Door 3) to the
remaining door (Door 2, the one that the contestant has not chosen and
Monty Hall did not open). A naive approach would be to say there is an
equal probability for there to be a goat behind the remaining door (Door 2)
and behind the door that the contestant has already selected (Door 3)—after
all, one door has a goat and one has a car. What is the point of switching?
However this naive approach does not take into account the fact that there
are two distinct goats. A more careful analysis of cases occurs in our solution
to the problem, and reveals a surprising answer.
Let us use a case-by-case analysis to solve the Monty Hall problem. We
denote the goats by G1 and G2 (for goat one and goat two) and the car by
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