Indiscrete thoughts
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Indiscrete thoughts
（Modern Birkhäuser classics）
Birkhäuser, c2008
- : pbk.
Available at 4 libraries
Note
Includes index
Reprint of the 1997 edition
"Originally published as a monograph" -- T.p. verso
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Indiscrete Thoughts gives a glimpse into a world that has seldom been described - that of science and technology as seen through the eyes of a mathematician. The era covered by this book, 1950 to 1990, was surely one of the golden ages of science and of the American university. Cherished myths are debunked along the way as Gian-Carlo Rota takes pleasure in portraying, warts and all, some of the great scientific personalities of the period. Rota is not afraid of controversy. Some readers may even consider these essays indiscreet. This beautifully written book is destined to become an instant classic and the subject of debate for decades to come.
Table of Contents
Foreward by Reuben Hersh.- Foreward by Robert Sokolowski.- Introduction by Gian-Carlo Rota.- Fine Hall in its Golden Age Remembrances of Princeton in the Early Fifties.- Light Shadows Yale in the Early Fifties.- Combinatorics, Representation Theory and Invariant Theory The Story of a Menage a Trois.- The Barrier of Meaning.- Stan Ulam.- The Lost Cafe.- The Pernicious Influence of Mathematics Upon Philosophy.- Philosophy and Computer Science.- The Phenomenology of Mathematical Truth.- The Phenomenology of Mathematical Beauty.- The Phenomenology of Mathematical Proof.- Syntax, Semantics, and the Problem of the Identity of Mathematical Items.- The Barber of Seville or the Useless Precaution.- Kant and Husserl.- Fundierung as a Logical Concept.- The Primacy of Identity.- Three Senses of 'A is B' in Heidegger.- Ten Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught.- Ten Lessons for the Survival of a Mathematics Department.- A Mathematician's Gossip.- Book Reviews.- End Notes.- Epilogue by Fabrizion Palombi.- Index
by "Nielsen BookData"