Word: mathematicians
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...root of the word algebra is the Arabic al-jabr, which means "bringing together." Saxon's synthesis of traditional practice and drill with the fundamentals of modern algebraic theory taught clearly may provide an alternative to the present dismal state of mathematics teaching. Alfred North Whitehead, the English mathematician and philosopher, once noted that "the study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment." If John Saxon is right, the study of algebra may not end so. -By Richard Stengel. Reported by Jeanne-Marie North/New York
...anyone but a mathematician, it is a number beyond meaning, whether characterized as a thousand billion, a million million, or written out as a one followed by a dozen zeros. The number is a trillion, and last week Ronald Reagan signed a bill increasing the legal debt limit of the U.S. Government for the first time to more than $1 trillion...
MARRIED BY PROXY. Alexei Semyonov, 24, graduate student in mathematics at Brandeis University and stepson of exiled Soviet Dissident and Physicist Andrei Sakharov; and Liza Alexeyeva, 25, Moscow mathematician who has been barred from emigrating from the Soviet Union; he for the second time, she for the first; in Butte, Mont., because the state is one of the few to recognize proxy marriages. Semyonov, who has lived in the U.S. since 1978, spoke his vows to Alexeyeva's stand0-in, Edward Kline, editor of the Russian-language publishing house, Khronika Press...
Even with all the technical disappointments, with the contaminated experiments, with the mysterious dying cells, even with the super-sensitive equipment that must be pampered like an old Buick, the mathematician's son has had some fun. Basic research is time consuming, lonely, chancy, and incredibly discouraging. But Se-jin entered it as if slipping into a warm bath...
...Uston read Beat the Dealer, a 1962 book by Mathematician Edward Thorp, the "father" of card counting. Uston, a statistics, mathematics and computer buff, was fascinated, and while still serving as a pillar of the West Coast financial establishment, began imagining himself a buckaroo blackjack hero. For six years he worked feverishly to acquire the necessary skills, practicing rigorous memory drills and doing complex statistical calculations. In 1974 he went to Harrah's Casino in Reno to put himself to the test. He won $3,000 and never looked back...