When Least Is Best : How Mathematicians Discovered Many Clever Ways to Make Things as Small (or as Large) as Possible

By combining the mathematical history of extrema with contemporary examples, Nahin answers intriguing questions in this engaging and witty volume. He shows how life often works at the extremes--with values becoming as small (or as large) as possible--and how mathematicians over the centuries have struggled to calculate these problems of minima and maxima.