About the Authors
Thanks to science backgrounds and their numerous science publications, both
Patricia Barnes-Svarney and Thomas E. Svarney have had much more than a passing
acquaintance with mathematics.
Barnes-Svarney has been a nonfiction science and science-fiction writer for 20
years. She has a bachelor’s degree in geology and a master’s degree in geography/
geomorphology, and at one time she was planning to be a math major. Barnes-
Svarney has had some 350 articles published in magazines and journals and is the
author or coauthor of more than 30 books, including the award-winning New York
Public Library Science Desk Referenceand Asteroid: Earth Destroyer or New
Frontier?,as well as several international best-selling children’s books. In her spare
time, she gets as much produce and herbs as she can out of her extensive gardens
before the wildlife takes over.
Thomas E. Svarney brings extensive scientific training and experience, a love of
nature, and creative artistry to his various projects. With Barnes-Svarney, he has
written extensively about the natural world, including paleontology (The Handy
Dinosaur Answer Book), oceanography (The Handy Ocean Answer Book), weather
(Skies of Fury: Weather Weirdness around the World), natural hazards (A Paranoid’s
Ultimate Survival Guide), and reference (The Oryx Guide to Natural History). His
passions include martial arts, Zen, Felis catus,and nature.
When they aren’t traveling, the authors reside in the Finger Lakes region of
upstate New York with their cats, Fluffernutter, Worf, and Pabu.MathFM 8/22/07 9:27 AM Page 1