Harvard Book Store Channel |
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September 28, 2012
Steven Johnson
discusses Future Perfect: The Case For Progress In A Networked Age -
September 28, 2012
Natalie Hopkinson
discusses Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City -
September 21, 2012
Daniel Kantstroom
discusses Aftermath: Deportation Law and the New American Diaspora -
March 7, 2012
The Future of Black Politics
A panel discussion with Michael Dawson and William Julius Wilson, moderated by Eugene Rivers -
October 18, 2011
Ron Suskind
discusses Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President -
March 4, 2011
Maya Jasanoff
discusses Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World -
February 25, 2011
Siva Vaidhyanathan
discusses The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry) -
February 24, 2011
Dani Rodrik
discusses The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy -
February 18, 2011
Izzeldin Abuelaish
discusses I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity -
February 17, 2011
Parag Khanna
discusses How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance -
February 14, 2011
Dambisa Moyo
discusses How the West Was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly and the Stark Choices Ahead -
February 10, 2011
Daniel Rasmussen
discusses American Uprising: The Untold Story of America's Largest Slave Revolt -
February 4, 2011
Sherry Turkle
discusses Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other -
January 27, 2011
Robert and Ellen Kaplan
discuss Hidden Harmonies: The Lives and Times of the Pythagorean Theorem -
January 24, 2011
Seth Mnookin
discusses The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear -
January 22, 2011
Christian Lander
discusses Whiter Shades of Pale: The Stuff White People Like, Coast to Coast, from Seattle's Sweaters to Maine's Microbrews -
January 14, 2011
Richard Wolffe
discusses Revival: The Struggle for Survival Inside the Obama White House -
December 7, 2010
Chris Kimball
The cast of America's Test Kitchen discusses their Healthy Family Cookbook -
November 3, 2010
The Best American Short Stories 2010
Series editor Heidi Pitlor joins guest editor, Richard Russo, and contributors Brendan Mathews and Steve Almond -
November 1, 2010
Gal Beckerman
Gal Beckerman discusses When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry -
October 26, 2010
The Best American Essays 2010
Series editor Robert Atwan joins contributors John Summers and Jerald Walker -
October 25, 2010
Robert Kaplan
Robert Kaplan discusses Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power -
October 15, 2010
Timothy Snyder
Timothy Snyder discusses Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin -
September 23, 2010
Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan
Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan discuss The Fall -
April 17, 2010
Mark Oppenheimer
Mark Oppenheimer discusses Wisenheimer: A Childhood Subject to Debate -
March 23, 2010
Christopher Hitchens and Rabbi David Wolpe
Christopher Hitchens and Rabbi David Wolpe weigh in on The Great God Debate -
February 17, 2010
Kevin Sampsell and Justin Taylor
Kevin Sampsell and Justin Taylor discuss A Common Pornography and Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever -
February 8, 2010
John Callahan and Adam Bradley
John Callahan and Adam Bradley discuss Ralph Ellison's Three Days Before the Shooting -
February 2, 2010
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
Rebecca Goldstein discusses 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction -
January 8, 2010
Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough
Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough discuss All Things at Once -
December 3, 2009
Harry Evans and Jason Epstein
Harry Evans and Jason Epstein discuss My Paper Chase and Eating -
October 29, 2009
Harriet Reisen
Harriet Reisen discusses Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women -
October 23, 2009
Thomas Cathcart
Thomas Cathcart discusses Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates
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December 19, 2013
Don’t Watch This If You Are a Bookseller’s Cousin or Mom
What is our discerning staff giving for the holidays? -
September 22, 2011
Minimum Paige: A Harvard Book Store Comic Anthology
A project this heroic could only be accomplished by the most dynamic of duos. -
September 16, 2011
Lucy the Wonder-Pup Picks the Booker
Can this adorable puppy predict the winner of the Man Booker Prize? -
January 21, 2011
HBTV Presents: Jurassic Books
A short film that ponders the possibilities of a large scale book printing robot... -
January 14, 2011
HBTV Is On The Air!
Cambridge's only local, fictional television station that's based out of an independent book store. -
September 8, 2010
Carole
recommends Wrestling with Moses and The Death and Life of Great American Cities
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Robert and Ellen Kaplan
Robert Kaplan and Ellen Kaplan illuminate Hidden Harmonies: The Lives and Times of the Pythagorean Theorem
Harvard Book Store is delighted to welcome husband-and-wife mathematics education team ROBERT KAPLAN and ELLEN KAPLAN as they reveal the wonder of one of geometry's simplest equations and discuss their new book, Hidden Harmonies: The Lives and Times of the Pythagorean Theorem.
a2 + b2 = c2. It sounds simple, doesn't it? Yet this familiar equation is a gateway into the riotous garden of mathematics, and sends us on a journey of exploration in the company of two inspired guides, authors and teachers Robert and Ellen Kaplan. They trace the life of the Pythagorean Theorem, from ancient Babylon to the present, visiting along the way Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, President James Garfield, and the Freemasons—not to mention the elusive Pythagoras himself, who almost certainly did not make the statement that bears his name.
How can a theorem have more than one proof? Why does this one have more than two hundred—or is it four thousand? The Pythagorean Theorem has even more applications than proofs: Ancient Egyptians used it for surveying property lines, and today astronomers call on it to measure the distance between stars. Its generalizations are stunning—the theorem works even with shapes on the sides that aren't squares, and not just in two dimensions, but any number you like. And perhaps its most intriguing feature of all, this tidy equation opened the door to the world of irrational numbers, an untidy discovery that deeply troubled Pythagoras's disciples.
"It's clear that this theorem continues to play an important role in math and science, that the human capacity for theoretical exploration remains unabated and that our 'curiosity always seeks to justify the peculiar, and imagination to shape a deeper unity.' As such, this engaging history of the elegantly simple theorem provides readers with much more to ponder than just the mathematical." —Kirkus Reviews
Ellen Kaplan is an archaeologist, math teacher, and co-founder, with her husband Robert Kaplan, of The Math Circle, a program for the exploration and enjoyment of mathematics, which is opening branches across America and Great Britain. She is the co-author of several books, including of the bestseller Chances Are…: Adventures in Probability, and Bozo Sapiens: Why to Err Is Human.
Robert Kaplan has taught mathematics to people from six to sixty, at leading independent schools and most recently at Harvard University. He and his wife Ellen Kaplan are the founders of The Math Circle. He is the author of the best-selling The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero, which has been translated into 10 languages, and the co-author, with Ellen Kaplan, of The Art of the Infinite.