Understanding Mathematics in the Digital Age

This book provides a new and highly approachable introduction to mathematics in the digital age. Numerous practical case studies are provided, from CD data recording to population modeling, with clear explanations and worked examples using widely available personal computer tools. These tools include spreadsheets such as Excel and modern mathematical software packages such as MATLab and Maple.

Part I of the book introduced the topic and its intended audience. Parts II to IV are the main sections of the book.

Part II provides foundation materials explaining the origins of our system of numbers and the notation used in mathematics. It then explores a number of familiar topics including the determination of times and distances, the structure of sound waves, the speed of light and gravity measurement.

Part III takes the exploration process further, using the computer as a tool to investigate credit card and email security, digital photography, arithmetic by computers and the modeling of population dynamics.

Part IV concludes the exploration with details of a wide range of interesting numbers and number sequences, coupled with a little of the history for some of those that are regarded as being of greatest importance.

Part V provides number of "mathematical extras" together with a selection of suggested books to read, web sites to explore and software to use.

Collectively these five Parts offer a brief, but wide-ranging introduction to many areas of mathematics, physics and modern computing science. In the process and without recourse to “higher mathematics” it introduces readers to the history of mathematics, algebra, number theory, finite and infinite series, trigonometry, calculus, statistics and a fair sprinkling of computational mathematics