Euclid in the Rainforest

This work talks about the logic of nature and the nature of logic. Like Douglas Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach, and David Berlinski's "A Tour of the Calculus", "Euclid in the Rainforest" combines the literary with the mathematical to explore logic - the one indispensable tool in man's quest to und [...]
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This work talks about the logic of nature and the nature of logic. Like Douglas Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach, and David Berlinski's "A Tour of the Calculus", "Euclid in the Rainforest" combines the literary with the mathematical to explore logic - the one indispensable tool in man's quest to understand the world. Through adventure stories and historical narratives populated with a rich and quirky cast of characters, Mazur artfully reveals the less-than-airtight nature of logic and the muddled relationship between maths and the real world. Ultimately, Mazur argues, logical reasoning is not purely robotic. At its most basic level, it is a creative process guided by our intuitions and beliefs about the world.