Big Math
Description
Imagine every photo on your phone, every movie you stream, and every secure credit card transaction you make online. Big Math (i.e., linear algebra) is operating under the hood for each of these everyday miracles. It is:
- The mathematical machinery that compresses images so they can be quickly uploaded to Instagram.
- The secret sauce behind Netflix to recommend your next favorite show.
- The sentinel that encrypts your data to keep it safe from prying eyes.
- The force behind Google's search algorithm allowing you to sift through the vastness of the internet with a few keystrokes.
The brainpower enabling the AI revolution, from self-driving cars to large language models like ChatGPT.
Big math provides the concepts and algorithms needed in today's digital world. Yet Big Math isn't limited to practical applications. It promotes a broader, multi-dimensional thinking style critical for solving problems in all walks of life. It teaches us to see and manipulate relationships in a cloud of numbers, understand structures and patterns, and simplify complex problems into manageable pieces. This skill set is invaluable for scientists, engineers, programmers, entrepreneurs, financial quants, and anyone who deals with the colossal amounts of data that define our information-saturated age.
BIG MATH is the first book to introduce linear algebra to a non-technical audience - exploring what it is, who created it, and why it matters.
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Persons
STEVEN STROGATZ is the Winokur Distinguished Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Mathematics. He is the author of SYNC, THE JOY OF X, and INFINITE POWERS, which was a NEW YORK TIMES bestseller and a finalist for the Royal Society Science Book Prize. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is one of the world's most highly cited mathematicians, a frequent columnist in THE NEW YORK TIMES and THE NEW YORKER, a regular guest on RADIOLAB and SCIENCE FRIDAY, and the winner of MIT's and Cornell's highest teaching prizes. His awards include the AAAS Public Engagement with Science Award (2013); the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science (2015); and the nation's top prize for science communication, the National Academies Eric and Wendy Schmidt Award for Excellence in Science Communications (2023).
Alex Townsend (Author)
ALEX TOWNSEND is one of the world's top young researchers in numerical linear algebra, scientific computing, and scientific artificial intelligence. A 2022 Simons Fellow, he has been honored with many international prizes in numerical analysis and linear algebra, including the Leslie Fox Prize (2015), the SIGEST award for best paper in Linear Algebra (2019), the SIAM Linear Algebra Early Career Prize (2018), and SIAM's best paper prize in Computational Science and Engineering (2023). He has taught linear algebra to over three thousand MIT and Cornell students in math, engineering, and computational science. In 2022, he received Cornell's highest teaching prize for junior faculty and is acclaimed for engaging and reaching students at all levels, including those who have lost confidence in their math abilities.
