Slicing Pizzas, Racing Turtles, and Further Adventures in Applied Mathematics

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Chapter 1 Broad Stripes and Bright Stars 3

Chapter 2 More Stars, Honeycombs, and Snowflakes 13

Chapter 3 Slicing Things Like Pizzas and Watermelons 23

Chapter 4 Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head and Other Goodies 34

Chapter 5 Raindrops and Other Goodies Revisited 44

Chapter 6 Which Major Rivers Flow Uphill? 49

Chapter 7 A Brief Look at pi, e, and Some Other Famous Numbers 57

Chapter 8 Another Look at Some Famous Numbers 69

Chapter 9 Great Number Sequences: Prime, Fibonacci, and Hailstone 78

Chapter 10 A Fast Way to Escape 97

Chapter 11 How to Get Anywhere in About Forty-Two Minutes 105

Chapter 12 How Fast Should You Run in the Rain? 114

Chapter 13 Great Turtle Races: Pursuit Curves 123

Chapter 14 More Great Turtle Races: Logarithmic Spirals 131

Chapter 15 How Many People Have Ever Lived? 138

Chapter 16 The Great Explosion of 2023 146

Chapter 17 How to Make Fairly Nice Valentines 153

Chapter 18 Somewhere Over the Rainbow 163

Chapter 19 Making Mathematical Mountains 177

Chapter 20 How to Make Mountains out of Molehills 184

Chapter 21 Moving Continents from Here to There 196

Chapter 22 Cartography: How to Flatten Spheres 204

Chapter 23 Growth and Spreading and Mathematical Analogies 219

Chapter 24 How Long Is the Seam on a Baseball? 232

Chapter 25 Baseball Seams, Pipe Connections, and World Travels 247

Chapter 26 Lengths, Areas, and Volumes of All Kinds of Shapes 256

References 279

Index 285