The Great Pi/e Debate: Divide and Conquer

So if you've been scratching your head over what to get that mathematician in your life for the holidays, well, your lucky number just came up. Look no further than "The Great Pi/e Debate", a 40-minute DVD produced by those cut-ups at the Mathematical Association of America.

In the debate, Williams College mathematicians Thomas Garrity and Colin Adams verbally duke it out over the issue of transcendence between the two transcendental numbers -- Euler's number "e," and "pi". (I'm laughing already.) In the process, they try to answer the question of which one of these is the better number. And when it comes to mathematicians, all's fair in addition and subtraction. (Look out Jerry and George.)

According to Adams, who received a B.S. from MIT and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, "in teaching people about math it is important for them to feel it's exciting and alive." This is what Adams had in mind when he penned those scholarly tomes "The Knot Book: An Elementary Introduction to the Mathematical Theory of Knots", "Why Knot"" and "How to Ace Calculus: A Streetwise Guide."

Likewise, Garrity, who received a B.A. and B.S. from the University of Texas at Austin and Ph.D. from Brown University, is the chair of the mathematics and statistics department at Williams, and author of "All the Mathematics You Missed: But Need to Know for Graduate School."

The Great Pi/e Debate" can be ordered directly from the Mathematical Association's bookstore.

Posted by Jon Erickson at 10:43 AM  Permalink