Hidden Harmonies: The Lives and Times of the Pythagorean Theorem
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Overview
A squared plus b squared equals c squared. It
sounds simple, doesn’t it? Yet this familiar expression is a gateway
into the riotous garden of mathematics, and sends us on a journey of
exploration in the company of two inspired guides, acclaimed authors
Robert and Ellen Kaplan. With wit, verve, and clarity, they trace the
life of the Pythagorean theorem, from ancient Babylon to the present,
visiting along the way Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, President
James Garfield, and the Freemasons-not to mention the elusive Pythagoras
himself, who almost certainly did not make the statement that bears his
name.
How can a theorem have more than one proof? Why does this one have
more than two hundred-or is it four thousand? The Pythagorean theorem
has even more applications than proofs: Ancient Egyptians used it for
surveying property lines, and today astronomers call on it to measure
the distance between stars. Its generalizations are stunning-the theorem
works even with shapes on the sides that aren’t squares, and not just
in two dimensions, but any number you like, up to infinity. And perhaps
its most intriguing feature of all, this tidy expression opened the door
to the world of irrational numbers, an untidy discovery that deeply
troubled Pythagoras’s disciples.
Like the authors’ bestselling The Nothing That Is and Chances Are . . .-hailed as “erudite and witty," “magnificent," and “exhilarating"- Hidden Harmonies makes the excitement of mathematics palpable.
The untold history of the most famous relation in mathematics and what it illustrates about the nature of human reasoning.
The Kaplans have given us a wonderful, fun, and entertaining math book
The book possesses an alluring lyricism and a good sense of humor
The authors succeed in explaining the arcane aspects of the subject, and they are diligent in situating the Pythagorean theorem within the historical rise of mathematics. That they revel in the subject is clear...
Showing the theorem’s endless versatility, the Kaplans and their logic- and symbol-permeated text will engage those who delight in doing the math
Mathematics, in its true essence, is a deeply organic and intensely human enterprise and Bob and Ellen Kaplan are the masters of reveling in its delight and elucidating its richness. Hidden Harmonies is a stunning book, taking the most classic theorem in mathematics and exposing its story, its human story, for what it really is: true poetry
- Title: Hidden Harmonies: The Lives and Times of the Pythagorean Theorem
- Authors: E Ann Kaplan, Robert Kaplan
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Press
- Print Publication Date: 2011
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 304
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781608192915, 9781596915220, 1596915226, 1608192911
- Resource ID: LLS:9781608192915
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2026-04-14T10:13:02Z
Robert and Ellen Kaplan have taught mathematics to people from
six to sixty, at leading independent schools and most recently at
Harvard University. Robert Kaplan is the author of the best-selling The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero, which has been translated into 10 languages, and together they wrote The Art of the Infinite. Ellen Kaplan is also co-author of Chances Are: Adventures in Probability and Bozo Sapiens: Why to Err is Human, co-written with her son Michael Kaplan.