How math explains the world

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the Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell

Shocked by the teenage violence she witnessed during the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, Erin Gruwell became a teacher at a high school rampant with hostility and racial intolerance. For many of these students--whose ranks included substance abusers, gang members, the homeless, and victims of abuse--Gruwell was the first person to treat them with dignity, to believe in their potential and help them see it themselves. Soon, their loyalty towards their teacher and burning enthusiasm to help end violence and intolerance became a force of its own. Inspired by reading The Diary of Anne Frank and meeting Zlata Filipovic (the eleven-year old girl who wrote of her life in Sarajevo during the civil war), the students began a joint diary of their inner-city upbringings. Told through anonymous entries to protect their identities and allow for complete candor, The Freedom Writers Diary is filled with astounding vignettes from 150 students who, like civil rights activist Rosa Parks and the Freedom Riders, heard society tell them where to go--and refused to listen.Proceeds from this book benefit the Freedom Writers Foundation, an organization set up to provide scholarships for underprivieged youth and to train teachersFrom the Trade Paperback edition.

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Stefan Hildebrandt, Anthony Tromba

The authors look at familiar examples of nature's tendency to economize, to the nuclei of atoms to the planets of our solar system.

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Carlos Barrios

Discover What the Prophecy of 2012 Means for Your LifeAccording to the Mayan Elders, at the moment of birth every human being is given a destiny. Our life challenge is to develop ourselves and our skills in order to fulfill this destiny, thus fueling our individual contribution to the planet. At the heart of The Book of Destiny is the sacred Mayan calendar, an extraordinary tool that allows the reader to discover this destiny, along with one’s special Mayan symbol, origin, as well as the protection spirits that accompany them through life. Poetically narrated, the book describes how the calendar contains the scientific legacy of the Mayan people, preserved and transmitted over the centuries through oral tradition and written texts.Written at the request of the Mayan Elders, by member of the Guatemalan Elders Council and Mayan Priest Carlos Barrios, The Book of Destiny is a tool to help people understand their life purpose and to use this profound knowledge to make the best of their time on earth.

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Amir D. Aczel

A portrait of the great 17th century philosopher and mathematician looks at the contributions of Rene Descartes. His interest in mysticism and probable membership in the occult brotherhood of Rosicrucians, and his secret notebook, which he kept in code, attempting to redecipher the contents of the long lost volume. Rene Descartes (1596-1650) is one of the towering and central figures in Western philosophy and mathematics. His apothegm "Cogito, ergo sum" marked the birth of the mind body problem, while his creation of so-called Cartesian coordinates has made our intellectual conquest of physical space possible. But Descartes had a mysterious and mystical side, as well. After Descartes' death, Gottfried Leibniz, inventor of calculus and one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, moved to Paris in search of this notebook and eventually found it in the possession of Claude Clerselier, a friend of Descartes'. Liebniz called on Clerselier and was allowed to copy only a couple of pages, which, though written in code, he amazingly deciphered there on the spot. Liebniz's hastily scribbled notes are all we have today of Descartes' notebook. Why did Descartes keep a secret notebook, and what were its contents? The answers to these questions will lead the reader on an exciting, swashbuckling journey, and offer a fascinating look at one of the great figures of Western culture.