This book addresses the age-old problem of infinite regresses in epistemology. How can we ever come to know something if knowing requires having good reasons, and reasons can only be good if they are backed by good reasons in turn? The problem has puzzled philosophers ever since antiquity, giving rise to what is often called Agrippa's Trilemma...
This free book focuses on the interplay between random walks on planar maps and Koebe's circle packing theorem. Further topics covered include electric networks, the He–Schramm theorem on infinite circle packings, uniform spanning trees of planar maps, local limits of finite planar maps and the almost sure recurrence of simple random walks o...
This book was written to serve as an introduction to logic, with in each chapter – if applicable – special emphasis on the interplay between logic and philosophy, mathematics, language and (theoretical) computer science. The reader will not only be provided with an introduction to classical logic, but to philosophical (modal, epistemic, deontic...
This book is an introductory text for all those wishing to learn about modern views of the cosmos. Our universe originated in a great explosion – the big bang. For nearly a century cosmologists have studied the aftermath of this explosion: how the universe expanded and cooled down, and how galaxies were gradually assembled by gravity. The nature ...
Making up Numbers: A History of Invention in Mathematics offers a detailed but accessible account of a wide range of mathematical ideas. Starting with elementary concepts, it leads the reader towards aspects of current mathematical research.
The book explains how conceptual hurdles in the development of numbers and number systems were overcome i...
It is increasingly clear that the shapes of reality - whether of the natural world, or of the built environment - are in some profound sense mathematical. Therefore it would benefit students and educated adults to understand what makes mathematics itself 'tick', and to appreciate why its shapes, patterns and formulae provide us with preci...
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems, TACAS 2001. The 36 revised full papers presented together with an invited contribution were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 125 submissions. The papers are organized in sections on ...
This open access textbook is the first to provide Business and Economics Ph.D. students with a precise and intuitive introduction to the formal backgrounds of modern financial theory. It explains Brownian motion, random processes, measures, and Lebesgue integrals intuitively, but without sacrificing the necessary mathematical formalism, making them...
To quote Arthur Conan Doyle, "It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important." While I usually associate that quote with the toppings I want on my sundae, it rings true for the holistic view of DevOps.
Configuration Management is critical, and you should have a system in place to handle the b...
Tensor network is a fundamental mathematical tool with a huge range of applications in physics, such as condensed matter physics, statistic physics, high energy physics, and quantum information sciences. This open access book aims to explain the tensor network contraction approaches in a systematic way, from the basic definitions to the important a...
This free book discusses firm valuation, which is of interest to economists, particularly those working in finance. Firm valuation comes down to the calculation of the discounted cash flow, often only referred to by its abbreviation, DCF. There are, however, different coexistent versions, which seem to compete against each other, such as entity app...
This open access book presents the key aspects of statistics in Wasserstein spaces, i.e. statistics in the space of probability measures when endowed with the geometry of optimal transportation. Further to reviewing state-of-the-art aspects, it also provides an accessible introduction to the fundamentals of this current topic, as well as an overvie...
This book is assembled from lectures given by the author over a period of 10 years at the School of Computing of DePaul University. The lectures cover multiple classes, including Analysis and Design of Algorithms, Scientific Computing, Monte Carlo Simulations, and Parallel Algorithms. These lectures teach the core knowledge required by any scientis...
This free book will focus on theoretical aspects of Statistical Learning and Sequential Prediction. Until recently, these two subjects have been treated separately within the learning community. The course will follow a unified approach to analyzing learning in both scenarios. To make this happen, we shall bring together ideas from probability and ...
This book is for people who build for the web and want to add animation to their designs and sites. A bit of basic CSS knowledge is needed but I won't assume any knowledge of transitions or animations. We'll start with the basics, and through a mix of theory and practical examples, learn all about transitions and animation....
The technology of mechanized program verification can play a supporting role in many kinds of research projects in computer science, and related tools for formal proof-checking are seeing increasing adoption in mathematics and engineering. This book provides an introduction to the Coq software for writing and checking mathematical proofs. It takes ...
You've mined for diamonds, crafted dozens of tools, and built all sorts of structures - but what if you could program robots to do all of that for you in a fraction of the time?
In Coding with Minecraft, you'll create a virtual robot army with Lua, a programming language used by professional game developers. Step-by-step coding project...
Types are the central organizing principle of the theory of programming languages. Language features are manifestations of type structure. The syntax of a language is governed by the constructs that define its types, and its semantics is determined by the interactions among those constructs. The soundness of a language design - the absence of ill-d...
The purpose of the book is to give a thorough introduction to the methods of model theory for first order logic. Model theory is the branch of logic that deals with mathematical structures and the formal languages they interpret. First order logic is the most important formal language and its model theory is a rich and interesting subject with sign...
Geometry with an Introduction to Cosmic Topology approaches geometry through the lens of questions that have ignited the imagination of stargazers since antiquity. What is the shape of the universe? Does the universe have an edge? Is it infinitely big?
This text develops non-Euclidean geometry and geometry on surfaces at a level appropriate for ...