The Handy Math Answer Book

Maximal heart rate, 407

Maxwell, James Clerk, 279

Maxwell’s equations, 279

Mayans, 10, 158, 159 (ill.)

Mean sea level, 303–4

Mean Sea Surface, 303

Mean-Value Theorem, 226,

227 (ill.)

Measurements, 40

accuracy in, 49

ancient, 42

barleycorn, 43, 43 (ill.)

connection to mathemat-

ics, 41

conversions, 463–67

definition of, 41

foot, 44–46

gallon, 48–49

Legendre, Adrien-Marie,

50

length, 43–44

metric system, 51–54

ounces, 47–48

pound, 47–48

prefix names, 52–53

prefixes, 51–52 (table),

51–53

rate, 49

scientific notation, 54

standard units of, 463–67

systems, 49–50, 463–67

temperature, 54–55

volume, 48–49

weight, 46–47

Measures of central tenden-

cy, 259

Mechanical clock, 59

Median, 259

Medicine, 392

Medium Range Forecast, 314

Menabrea, Luigi Federico,

357

Mendel, Gregor, 315 (ill.),

315–16

Mercalli, Giuseppe, 300

Mercalli Intensity Scale, 300

Mercantile pound, 48

Meridian, 397, 415

Mersenne, Father Marin, 85

Mersenne primes, 85, 85

(table), 86

Mesh, 326

Mesopotamians, 7, 166

Mesoscale Model #5, 314

Mesozoic Era, 298 (ill.)

Metamathematics, 113

Meteorology

absolute and relative

humidity, 305

air composition, 304

air density, 308

air pressure and altitude,

307–8

air temperature measure-

ment, 304–5

barometric pressure, 307,

307 (ill.)

computer models in pre-

dicting weather, 313

definition of, 304

heat index, 306, 306

(table)

humidity, 305

hurricanes, 310–11

(table)

inches of mercury, 307

millibars, 307

tornadoes, 311–13

(tables), 313 (ill.)

weather prediction, 312,

313–14

wind, 308–9, 309–10

(table)

wind chill, 309–10 (table)

Meter bar, 54

Method of exhaustion, 211

Method of indivisibles, 210

Metric system, 51–54

Metric ton, 47

Microcomputers, 364, 365

Microprocessors, 363–64

Mile, 44

Mileage, 416–17

Millibars, 307

Millionaire Calculator, 358

Minicomputer, 364

Minor arc, 184

Mirrors, 374

Mittag-Leffler, Magnus

Gösta, 36

Mixed partial derivatives, 225

Möbius, August Ferdinand,

206

Mode, 260

Model theory, 33, 67–68

Modeling, 300, 327 (ill.),

327–28

Modern calendars, 63–64

Modified Mercalli Intensity

Scale, 300

Modular arithmetic, 67, 82

(ill.), 82–83

Modulus, 82

Modus ponens, 119

Mohs, Friedrich, 301

Mohs’ Scale of hardness,

301, 301 (table)

Mole, 285

Moment magnitude, 302

Momentum, 277

Monet, Claude, 374

Money, 387–88

Monge, Gaspard, 168

Monomial, 150

Monotonic sequence, 213–14

Monte Carlo method, 270

Monterey Aquarium, 337

Monty Hall Problem, 440

Moon, 288

Mortgage and mortgage pay-

ments, 413–15

Moscow papyrus, 15

Motion, 276–77

Mt. Everest, 302, 302 (ill.)

Mt. Nuptse, 302 (ill.)

Movies, 457

Mozart Effect, 378, 379 (ill.)

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus,

378, 379 (ill.)

MRI (Magnetic Resonance

Imaging), 245

Mu Alpha Theta, 445

Mudd Math Fun Facts(Web

site), 462

Müller, Johann H., 354, 355

Multiplication, 13, 14, 252

Multiplication symbol, 94

Multiplication tables, 93–94

Multivalued functions,

128–29

Multivariate, 139

Multivariate polynomial, 150 497

INDEX

Handy Math BM 8/19/07 5:18 PM Page 497