Cover image for From cardinals to chaos : reflections on the life and legacy of Stanislaw Ulam
Title:
From cardinals to chaos : reflections on the life and legacy of Stanislaw Ulam
Publication Information:
Cambridge : Cambridge Univ Pr, 1989
ISBN:
9780521364942
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30000000198717 QA28 C27 1989 f Open Access Book Book
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Summary

Summary

First published 1987 as Los Alamos science, special issue. A compendium of biographical (and autobiographical) notes, essays, and scientific articles reflecting on Ulam's legacy of interdisciplinary approaches to problems in math, physics, and biology; and previously unpublished miscellanea--conversations, a satirical play. The whole serves to celebrate the personality and contributions of the dynamic mathematician. Annotation(c) 2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)


Reviews 1

Choice Review

Ulam (1909-1984) was a mathematician and scientist of the broadest possible range and the highest caliber. While he is best known to the public at large for his involvement with the Manhatten Project and the development of the hydrogen bomb, the essays collected here celebrate Ulam's diverse world in mathematics, physics, and biology. This book lavishly produced, with drawings and photographs on nearly every page, is aimed at a wide audience. Expositions of Ulam's work are kept as elementary as possible (though there is much here even for the professional mathematician), and are complemented by personal recollections of the man. Of note is a talk published here for the first time, "Reflections on the Brain's Attempts to Understand Itself." The book is timely for its coverage of Ulam's fundamental contributions to nonlinear science, a subject much in the news lately under its new rubric, "chaos." It is very interesting to see the themes that fascinate Ulam move back and forth from his purest abstractions to his hardest applications. Recommended for college libraries, as is Ulam's autobiography, Adventures of a Mathematician (CH, Sep '76). D. V. Feldman University of New Hampshire