Apology of the book

The 2015 Enlightener Laureate is the collection “Mathematical Component”. “This is a unique and necessary book,” says the mathematician and linguist Vladimir Andreevich Uspensky , author of “Apology of Mathematics”. In 2010 , she also received the Enlightener Award .

I respect the decision of the jury of the Enlightener Prize even when I disagree with him - how, say, it was in 2014; I do not call the nomination, but I believe that this decision was remembered by many of their strangeness. The decision of this year in the nomination “Natural and exact sciences” is joyfully welcomed by me-especially since I wrote six pages (from the 98th to the 103rd) of the 151 pages of the Laurant book, which is why I became one of the 16 authors who responded to the invitation of its authors.

It happened that the invited author wrote only one page - however, quite substantial. The authors of some articles were the editors themselves, of which there were three: Nikolai Nikolaevich Andreev, Sergey Petrovich Konovalov, Nikita Mikhailovich Panunin. So the total number of authors of the book, including Alexei Nikolayevich Krylov (1863–1945), is twenty.

I was persuaded to write six pages Nikolai Nikolaevich Andreev, a well -known author of “mathematical studies” embodied in animated video clips. My hesitation was caused by doubt whether I could write something worthy of the task. And the plan of the compilers was truly original: to collect short texts under one cover, which would reflect the specific role of mathematics-the “mathematical component”-in the achievements of the civilization that humanity uses.

The favorite book of early childhood of my peers was “What I saw” Boris Zhitkov (by the way, the cousin of the great Russian mathematician and popularizer of mathematics Vladimir Igorevich Arnold). When the hero of this book Alyosha Khruchka grows up, he will begin to ask more complex questions than in the book of Zhitkov. And he will find that mathematics gives many of them - both through the facts established by mathematics, and through the methods of thinking developed in this science.

What is the distance to the horizon? Why are hatches, drowned in sidewalks and bridge, always round, and square - very rarely? Can these covers have a different shape from a circle? Why do not trains go off the rails when turning, despite the fact that they are strictly planted on the wheel axis, forming a wheel pair , pass when turning the path of various lengths? How to arrange a cipher that could not be solved? Why does the light from the cataphot go into the eyes of a motorist illuminating it with his headlights, and does not go to the side somewhere?

Maybe he will ask even earlier, when his parents persuade him to drink half a glass of medicine and he drinks this poured medicine in a glass, holding his finger at half a height, so as not to drink more - why, as a result, it turns out that, despite all the precautions, he drinks more than half every time.

And in high school, Proachka will ask if the curvature of our space in the practical activities of people somehow manifests itself; And he finds out that yes, it manifests itself. He will ask why it is believed that there are four cases in German, and in Hungarian only the main ones (that is, used with any words) - 18, and what is the case in general; And he learns that the great mathematician Kolmogorov gave the answer to this question. And if he asks how easier and fastest to find the largest common divider of two numbers, he will be surprised to find out that the oldest good algorithm Euclid, known to humanity, has been working as quickly for two and a half thousand years. And if he asks how to quickly multiply large numbers, he finds out that such an algorithm was invented only in the 20th century.

To all these questions, Prochka will receive an answer in the book “Mathematical Component”. In my opinion, its uniqueness lies in the fact that this is the first book in the domestic science science literature, which, as the annotation says, is “told about the mathematical “ component ”of the largest achievements of civilization and the mathematical “ filling of the usual , everyday things ” . Another feature of the book is the popular and descriptive style of presentation, designed for the widest circles of readers. The number of formulas is minimized, but such a powerful means of influence on the reader as a color pattern is widely used; artist-former

Roman Aleksandrovich Koksharov is a separate gratitude.

The need for such a book is caused by the fact that a wide range of readers prepared to read classical popular books on mathematics has almost disappeared over the past quarter century and now

It is necessary to form it again. The book under consideration offers its own way to solve this important task: mathematics appears in the Book of Ge not as a separate science , but as a hidden part of the phenomena and objects of the world . As a rule, this is not aware of this, even experts who were engineering and technical terms: understanding how various technical devices are arranged, in most cases they do not understand where that mathematics are hidden in them, on the basis of which these devices are created.

The book is designed for the most time categories of readers . Children, reading it, can ask questions to parents, parents can also read this or that plot and recommend it to the child, counting on a joint discussion. Another target audience is those who make important decisions: as said in the preface, "from a schoolboy who chooses his future profession to a statesman who determines priorities in the development of the country."

A kaleidoscope of plots and a variety of styles is another feature of the book. The variety of plots enables each reader to find something personally interested. The book has twenty authors, each has its own style, it endows the book “Faces with an inequipte expressiveness”. The possibility of obtaining scientific information from first -hand is an important advantage of the book.

Finally, the book is excellently published, which, coupled with content, makes it a standard in a modern scientific book publishing. Technical editor Mikhail Yuryevich Panov is a separate gratitude.

The briefing editors committed a scientific feat, first planning a project that seemed at first fantastic and unrealized, and then implemented it. Bringing the idea to the book that can be taken in hand required significant efforts from the project participants. Only negotiations with the authors were worth it! Indeed, from each of them (except for Alexei Nikolayevich Krylov) it was necessary to achieve a text that did not break out of the style accepted in the book. Some remarkable articles (for example, about the distance to the horizon) were written by the compounding editors themselves.

When, during the award ceremony, the book editors were called onto the stage, the signs of the laureate were distributed between them: one was awarded a diploma and a ritual figurine, put a mantle on the other, a square academic hat with a brush with a brush.

This can be seen on the entry https://youtu.be/vbcav5fv1me , on which you can also listen to the performances of editors-compilers of the laureate book. What is the further fate of the mantle, hats, figurines and diploma, the record does not report. It can be assumed that they will be stored in the laboratory of popularization and propaganda of mathematics of the mathematical institute. V.A. Steklov now RAS, where all three of the called on the stage are.

Photo in . A . Uspensky from the site Gorod . Afi Sha . ru