Joseph Mazur

My full name is Joseph Conrad Mazur. My mother bought a used copy of Lord Jim in London on her way from Vienna to America, thinking that if she could read it with a dictionary it might improve her English. Like my mother, Conrad was Polish-born, so she felt that English written by a Pole must be easy to understand.

JOSEPH MAZUR is Professor of Mathematics at Marlboro College where he has taught a wide range of classes in all areas of mathematics, its history and philosophy. He holds a Ph.D. in mathematics from M.I.T., is a 2006 Guggenheim Fellow and has authored many educational software programs, including Explorations in Calculus, the first interactive, multimedia CD package of simulations for calculus. He is the author of Euclid in the Rainforest: Discovering Universal Truth in Mathematics (Finalist of the 2005 PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction and chosen as one of Choice's 2005 Outstanding Academic Titles of the Year) and the editor of the recently republished classic by Tobias Dantzig, Number: The Language of Science. His latest book is The Motion Paradox: The 2,500-Year Old Puzzle Behind All the Mysteries of Time and Space.

He is currently working on two writing projects:

1. The Amazing Light Bulb Change: a memoir containing elements of math discovery influenced by his first nonfiction book, Euclid in the Rainforest: Discovering Universal Truth in Logic and Math.

2. Turning Fortune's Wheel A book about the nature of gambling, emphasizing the dangers and pitfalls of feeling lucky. It will investigate the hooks of gambling and what makes gamblers feel lucky. Using both mathematics and psychology it will illustrate the misconceptions of luck, explore what it means to have a good chance, and to create an awareness of expected outcomes.