Voltaire's Riddle (Dolciani Mathematical Expositions)

Description

In 1752 Voltaire published Microm gas, the story of a 120,000-foot tall resident of a planet of Sirius who visited our solar system. As a parting gift, the visitor gave the French Academy of Sciences a book that, he said, contained the answer to all things. On examination, the book was found to be blank. This is the riddle: why was it blank? Voltaire's Riddle contains a new translation of the story and continues with a series of chapters, each of which begins with a historical or literary vignette followed by the mathematics behind it. Topics include trajectories of comets, the flattening of the Earth at the poles, Maupertius's pursuit problem, D rer's possible use of trochoids, and the precession of the equinoxes. The book ends with possible answers to Voltaire's riddle. Readers need know little more than calculus.