Optimization models play an increasingly important role in financial decisions. This is the first textbook devoted to explaining how recent advances in optimization models, methods and software can be applied to solve problems in computational finance more efficiently and accurately. Chapters discussing the theory and efficient solution methods for all major classes of optimization problems alternate with chapters illustrating their use in modeling problems of mathematical finance. The reader is guided through topics such as volatility estimation, portfolio optimization problems and constructing an index fund, using techniques such as nonlinear optimization models, quadratic programming formulations and integer programming models respectively. The book is based on Master's courses in financial engineering and comes with worked examples, exercises and case studies. It will be welcomed by applied mathematicians, operational researchers and others who work in mathematical and computational finance and who are seeking a text for self-learning or for use with courses.

Praised by Entertainment Weekly as "the man who put the fizz into physics," Dr. Len Fisher turns his attention to the science of cooperation in his lively and thought-provoking book. Fisher shows how the modern science of game theory has helped biologists to understand the evolution of cooperation in nature, and investigates how we might apply those lessons to our own society. In a series of experiments that take him from the polite confines of an English dinner party to crowded supermarkets, congested Indian roads, and the wilds of outback Australia, not to mention baseball strategies and the intricacies of quantum mechanics, Fisher sheds light on the problem of global cooperation. The outcomes are sometimes hilarious, sometimes alarming, but always revealing. A witty romp through a serious science, Rock, Paper, Scissors will both teach and delight anyone interested in what it what it takes to get people to work together.

Paul Erdos was an amazing and prolific mathematician whose life as a world-wandering numerical nomad was legendary. He published almost 1500 scholarly papers before his death in 1996, and he probably thought more about math problems than anyone in history. Like a traveling salesman offering his thoughts as wares, Erdos would show up on the doorstep of one mathematician or another and announce, "My brain is open." After working through a problem, he'd move on to the next place, the next solution. Hoffman's book, like Sylvia Nasar's biography of John Nash, A Beautiful Mind, reveals a genius's life that transcended the merely quirky. But Erdos's brand of madness was joyful, unlike Nash's despairing schizophrenia. Erdos never tried to dilute his obsessive passion for numbers with ordinary emotional interactions, thus avoiding hurting the people around him, as Nash did. Oliver Sacks writes of Erdos: "A mathematical genius of the first order, Paul Erdos was totally obsessed with his subject--he thought and wrote mathematics for nineteen hours a day until the day he died. He traveled constantly, living out of a plastic bag, and had no interest in food, sex, companionship, art--all that is usually indispensable to a human life."The Man Who Loved Only Numbers is easy to love, despite his strangeness. It's hard not to have affection for someone who referred to children as "epsilons," from the Greek letter used to represent small quantities in mathematics; a man whose epitaph for himself read, "Finally I am becoming stupider no more"; and whose only really necessary tool to do his work was a quiet and open mind. Hoffman, who followed and spoke with Erdos over the last 10 years of his life, introduces us to an undeniably odd, yet pure and joyful, man who loved numbers more than he loved God--whom he referred to as SF, for Supreme Fascist. He was often misunderstood, and he certainly annoyed people sometimes, but Paul Erdos is no doubt missed. --Therese Littleton

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CliffsQuickReview course guides cover the essentials of your toughest classes. Get a firm grip on core concepts and key material, and test your newfound knowledge with review questions. Whether you're looking for an in-depth treatment of the entire subject matter or occasional reinforcement of key algebra concepts, this is the place to find it.

In a masterful blend of biography and science writing, Nasar traces John Forbes Nash, Jr.'s rise to the heights of intellectual achievement and his harrowing descent from eccentricity to insanity. Released as a major motion picture directed by Ron Howard and starring Russell Crowe and Ed Harris.

"A wealth of intriguing and lovely ideas." -- Information Technology & Learning.
While the beauty of mathematics is often discussed, the aesthetic appeal of the discipline is seldom demonstrated as clearly as in this intriguing journey into the realms where art and mathematics merge. Aimed at a wide range of ages and abilities, this engrossing book explores the possibilities of mathematical drawing through compass constructions and computer graphics.
Compass construction is an extremely ancient art, requiring no special skills other than the care it takes to place a compass point accurately. For the computer graphics part of the present work, however, readers will need some familiarity with basic high school mathematics-mainly algebra and trigonometry. Still, much of the book can be enjoyed even by "mathophobes," for it is about lines and circles and how to put them together to make various patterns, both abstract and natural.
One hundred and six full-page drawings, ranging from totally abstract to somewhat pictorial, demonstrate the possibilities of mathematical drawing and serve as inspiration to readers to carry out their own creative investigations. Among the illustrations are such intriguing configurationsas a five-point egg, golden ratio, 17-gon, plughole vortex, blancmange curve, Durer's pentagons, pentasnow, turtle geometry, and many more. In guiding students toward the comprehension and creation of such figures, the author explains helpful basic principles (of number, length and angle) as well as reviewing relevant fundamentals of trigonometry. In addition, he has provided numerous useful exercises (with answers} at the ends of the chapters, together with recommended further reading, detailed in the bibliography. 211 black-and-white illustrations. Bibliography. Index.

'I have discovered a truly marvellous proof, which this margin is too narrow to contain...' With these tantalising words the seventeenth-century French mathematician Pierre de Fermat threw down the gauntlet to future generations. Fermat's last theorem looked simple enough for a child to solve, yet the finest mathematical minds would be baffled by the search for the proof.
Over three hundred and fifty years were to pass before a mild-mannered Englishman finally cracked the mystery in 1995. Fermat by then was far more than a theorem. Whole lives had been devoted to the quest for a solution. There was Sophie Germain, who had to take on the identity of a man to conduct research in a field forbidden to females. The dashing Evariste Galois scribbled down the results of his research deep into the night before sauntering out to die in a duel. The Japanese genius Yutaka Taniyama killed himself in despair, while the German industrialist Paul Wolfskehl claimed Fermat had saved him from suicide.
Andrew Wiles had dreamed of proving Fermat ever since he first read about the theorem as a boy of ten in his local library. Whilst the hopes of others had been dashed, his dream was destined to come true - but only after years of toil and frustration, of exhilarating breakthrough and crashing disappointment. The true story of how mathematics' most challenging problem was made to yield up its secrets is a thrilling tale of endurance, ingenuity and inspiration.

Written by three gifted--and funny--teachers, How to Ace Calculus provides humorous and readable explanations of the key topics of calculus without the technical details and fine print that would be found in a more formal text. Capturing the tone of students exchanging ideas among themselves, this unique guide also explains how calculus is taught, how to get the best teachers, what to study, and what is likely to be on exams--all the tricks of the trade that will make learning the material of first-semester calculus a piece of cake. Funny, irreverent, and flexible, How to Ace Calculus shows why learning calculus can be not only a mind-expanding experience but also fantastic fun.

Should you watch public television without pledging?...Exceed the posted speed limit?...Hop a subway turnstile without paying? These questions illustrate the so-called prisoner's dilemma, a social puzzle that we all face every day. Though the answers may seem simple, their profound implications make the prisoner's dilemma one of the great unifying concepts of science. Watching players bluff in a poker game inspired John von Neumann--father of the modern computer and one of the sharpest minds of the century--to construct game theory, a mathematical study of conflict and deception. Game theory was readily embraced at the RAND Corporation, the archetypical think tank charged with formulating military strategy for the atomic age, and in 1950 two RAND scientists made a momentous discovery.