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Can I read The Unimaginable Mathematics of Borges' Library of Babel on EtoBox?
The Unimaginable Mathematics of Borges' Library of Babel by W. L. Bloch, William Goldbloom Bloch is a science book available to read on EtoBox.
What is The Unimaginable Mathematics of Borges' Library of Babel about?
The Library of Babel is arguably Jorge Luis Borges' best known story-memorialized along with Borges on an Argentine postage stamp. Now, in The Unimaginable Mathematics of Borges' Library of Babel, William Goldbloom Bloch takes readers on a fascinating tour of the mathematical ideas hidden within one of the classic works of modern literature. Written in the vein of Douglas R. Hofstadter's Pulitzer Prize-winning Gödel, Escher, Bach, this original and imaginative book sheds light on one of Borges' most complex, richly layered works. Bloch begins each chapter with a mathematical idea-combinatorics, topology, geometry, information theory-followed by examples and illustrations that put flesh on the theoretical bones. In this way, he provides many fascinating insights into Borges' Library. He explains, for instance, a straightforward way to calculate how many books are in the Library-an easily notated but literally unimaginable number-and also shows that, ifeach book were the size of a grain of sand, the entire universe could only hold a fraction of the books in the Library. Indeed, if each book were the size of a proton, our universe would still not be big enough to hold anywhere near
Who reads The Unimaginable Mathematics of Borges' Library of Babel?
It is typically read by self-directed learners exploring a subject in depth.
Common subject areas: history, science, philosophy, social sciences.
- Author
- W. L. Bloch, William Goldbloom Bloch
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press, USA
- Published
- 2008
- Language
- EN
- ISBN
- 9780195334579
- Category
- science
- Subjects
- Literary Criticism, Mathematics, Romance
- Rating
- 3.93 / 5 (157 ratings)
- Updated
- 2026-03-14