Skrenta, Rich, 126
smoke-filled rooms, voting in, see
insincere voting
social sciences, applications of
mathematics to, 243–44
vote tabulation methods, see vote
tabulation methods
Social Text, 185
sociology, 29–30
Sokal, Alan, 185–86
solar neutrino deficit problem, 140, 148
solid geometry, 69
solution by radicals, 83
sound waves, 47, 139
space race, 2–3
spatial dimensions
extra, 146–47, 149, 150 –51, 189
three-dimensional universe, 150
species changing by atoms, 147–48
spectroscopy, 30
speed of light, 30, 62, 140
sports teams, professional, 7–8
square root of 2, discovery of the
incommensurability of, 67–68,
74, 76
square roots, 83
squaring the circle, 71, 74–75
Standard Model, 36–37, 137–38,
148 – 49
beyond the, 138, 141
gap in the, 145
unanswered questions of, 137–38
star, birth of a, 191
statistical mechanics, 191–92
statistics, 169, 170
steady state theory, 38
steam engine, 187
Steinbrenner, George, 8
Stone, Carl, xi
Stout, Rex, 245straightedge, 73
marked, 68
unmarked, 68, 69, 71
strange attractors, 182
string theory, 35, 140 –42, 143, 149, 151
mathematics of, 149–50
strong force, 36, 137, 146, 148
subatomic world, quantum mechanics
and, see quantum mechanics
supernova, 191
superstring theory, 141
supersymmetric particles, 142
Survivor (instant-runoff voting),
210 –11, 212–13
Sutton, Willie, xix
Swain, Dr. Henry, x
Swift, Jonathan, 94
syllogisms, 115–16
symmetries of objects, 98–99
Szilard, Leo, 138T
tachyons, 140
Tartaglia (nickname of Niccolo
Fontana), 84–88
Taurinus, Franz, 107, 108
Tavernier, Jean, 81
Tegmark, Max, 138–39, 247
Tennyson, Alfred Lord, 246
theory of everything, 144, 151
thermodynamics
first law of, 187, 188, 189
second law of, 187–88, 190, 192, 195
see also entropy
Thom, René, 243
Thomson, William, Lord Kelvin,
186 –87
three, 14–15
Thucydides, 68262 Index