Figuring It Out

1.Everyday Matters.The dinner table algorithm.-Cutting the Christmas cake.-Oranges and computers.-When two and two don’t make four.-Getting more intelligent every day.-The other lane always goes faster.-Shoelaces and neckties.-Number puzzles.-Tossing a coin.-The switch.- Eubulides, the heap and the euro.- 2.The Earth Is Round. How GPS works.-Gear wheels.- February 29.-The nonius scale.- Pedro Nunes’ map.- Lighthouse geometry.-Asteroids and least squares.-The useful man and the genius.-3.Secret Affairs. Alice and Bob.- Inviolate cybersecrets.-Quantum cryptography.-The FBI wavelet.-The Enigma machine.-4. Art And Geometry.The Vitruvian Man.-The golden number.-The geometry of A4 paper sizes.-The strange worlds of Escher.-Escher and the Möbius belt.-Picasso, Einstein and the fourth dimension.-Pollock’s fractals.-Voronoi diagrams.-The Platonic solids.-Pythagorean mosquitoes.-The most beautiful of all.- 5. Mathematical Matters.The power of math.-Doubts in the realm of certainty.-When chance enhances reliability.-The difficulty of randomness.-Conjectures and proofs.-Mr. Benford.-Financial fractals.-The Turing test.- DNA computers.-Magical multiplications.-Pi day.-The best job in the world.- 6. Out Of This World. Electoral paradoxes.-The melon paradox.- The cupcake paradox.- Infinity.-Unfair games.-Monsieur Bertrand.-Boy or Girl?.-A puzzle for Christmas.-Crisis time for Easter Eggs.