X and the city : modeling aspects of urban life / John Adam.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Adam, John A.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mathematical models.

City and town life--Mathematical models.

City and town life.

Cities and towns--Mathematical models.

Cities and towns.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (340 p.)

Edition:

Course Book

Place of Publication:

Princeton : Princeton University Press, c2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

X and the City, a book of diverse and accessible math-based topics, uses basic modeling to explore a wide range of entertaining questions about urban life. How do you estimate the number of dental or doctor's offices, gas stations, restaurants, or movie theaters in a city of a given size? How can mathematics be used to maximize traffic flow through tunnels? Can you predict whether a traffic light will stay green long enough for you to cross the intersection? And what is the likelihood that your city will be hit by an asteroid? Every math problem and equation in this book tells a story and examples are explained throughout in an informal and witty style. The level of mathematics ranges from precalculus through calculus to some differential equations, and any reader with knowledge of elementary calculus will be able to follow the materials with ease. There are also some more challenging problems sprinkled in for the more advanced reader. Filled with interesting and unusual observations about how cities work, X and the City shows how mathematics undergirds and plays an important part in the metropolitan landscape.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Preface

Chapter 1. Introduction

Chapter 2. Getting to the city

Chapter 3. Living in the city

Chapter 4. Eating in the city

Chapter 5. Gardening in the city

Chapter 6. Summer in the city

Chapter 7. Not driving in the city!

Chapter 8. Driving in the city

Chapter 9. Probability in the city

Chapter 10. Traffic in the city

Chapter 11. Car following in the city-I

Chapter 12. Car following in the city-II

Chapter 13. Congestion in the city

Chapter 14. Roads in the city

Chapter 15. Sex and the city

Chapter 16. Growth and the city

Chapter 17. The axiomatic city

Chapter 18. Scaling in the city

Chapter 19. Air pollution in the city

Chapter 20. Light in the city

Chapter 21. Nighttime in the city-I

Chapter 22. Nighttime in the city-II

Chapter 23. Lighthouses in the city?

Chapter 24. Disaster in the city?

Chapter 25. Getting away from the city

Appendix 1. Theorems for Princess Dido

Appendix 2. Princess Dido and the sinc function

Appendix 3. Taxicab geometry

Appendix 4. The Poisson distribution

Appendix 5. The method of Lagrange multipliers

Appendix 6. A spiral braking path

Appendix 7. The average distance between two random points in a circle

Appendix 8. Informal "derivation" of the logistic differential equation

Appendix 9. A miniscule introduction to fractals

Appendix 10. Random walks and the diffusion equation

Appendix 11. Rainbow/Halo details

Appendix 12. The Earth as vacuum cleaner?

Annotated references and notes

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786613589279

9781280494048

1280494042

9781400841691

1400841690

OCLC:

793519806