These lectures reveal how mathematics has changed the way people look at the world. We study how the model of certainty in Euclid's revolutionary Elements influenced philosophers for centuries, and how the invention of non-Euclidiean geometry further influenced philosophy and changed modern views of the world. As well. we consider how the newer disciplines of probability and statistics gave scientists ways of dealing--with precision--with events that...

"Was it always like this? What if your self portrait was a collection of weird shapes? Have you ever felt like an abstract painting? Do you ever simultaneously wish and worry that the boundaries of your body will melt away and you'll become a magnificent horse? Becoming Horses is a book about squinting hard and looking from the right angle to find that everything around you sparkles--just a little--and the shapes of things are not firm but fuzzy....

"A tribute and practical guide to the art, philosophy, and rituals of fly fishing, by an expert, lifelong angler. Each chapter focuses on a specific place, fish, and skill. Few individuals have the visual acuity required to catch the nearly invisible bonefish of the Bahamas flats, or the patience to land the elusive Atlantic salmon, "the fish of a thousand casts, " in eastern Canada. Pursuing these challenges, Coggins travels to one fishing paradise...

It commingles them with five previously uncollected essays by the MacArthur Foundation "genius." Among the supplementary essays is Hickey's surprising early profile of Dolly Parton; his elegiac tribute to comedian Richard Pryor; a description of the literary innovation of John Rechy's seminal gay novel Numbers; and a personal essay on the art of writing. Hickey's singular analysis of paintings by Ed Ruscha enjoins us to listen to art, not just look...