Paul Hoffman Books

Chronicles the life of the Hungarian mathematician who relentlessly traveled the globe in search of intriguing problems

"By the turn of the century, Santos-Dumont had moved to Paris. Soon, the dashing and impeccably dressed aeronaut was barhopping around the city in a one-man dirigible he invented, circling above crowds and crashing into rooftops. Eventually, he would join the world-wide competition to build the first true airplane. Once he succeeded, the press hailed him as the man who had conquered the air. (Because the Wright brothers worked in near secrecy, word of their first flights had not widely reached Europe when Santos-Dumon took to the skies.) His picture appeared on cigar boxes and dinner plates and he dined regularly with the Cartiers, the Rothschilds, and the Roosevelts, hosting "aerial dinners" in which his guests ate at an elevated table so they could imagine how it felt to be above the world." "But all would change after Santos-Dumont witnessed the destructive capacity of flying machines in World War I."--Jacket

The biography of a mathematical genius. Paul Erdos was the most prolific pure mathematician in history and, arguably, the strangest too. 'A mathematical genius of the first order, Paul Erdos was totally obsessed with his subject -- he thought and wrote mathematics for nineteen hours a day until he died. He travelled constantly, living out of a plastic bag and had no interest in food, sex, companionship, art -- all that is usually indispensible to a human life. Paul Hoffman, in this marvellous biography, gives us a vivid and strangely moving portrait of this singular creature, one that brings out not only Erdos's genius and his oddness, but his warmth and sense of fun, the joyfulness of his strange life.' Oliver Sacks For six decades Erdos had no job, no hobbies, no wife, no home; he never learnt to cook, do laundry, drive a car and died a virgin. Instead he travelled the world with his mother in tow, arriving at the doorstep of esteemed mathematicians declaring 'My brain is open'. He travelled until his death at 83, racing across four continents to prove as many theorems as possible, fuelled by a diet of espresso and amphetamines. With more than 1,500 papers written or co-written,

Set in 1925 Milwaukee, the story unfolds around the mysterious disappearance of eight-year-old Arthur Buddy Schumacher Jr. After he and his friends sneak off to a swimming hole, he vanishes, prompting a desperate seven-week search by the community. The grim discovery of his body, found just a mile from home with signs of foul play, sends shockwaves through Wauwatosa. Despite various leads, the investigation struggles to uncover the truth behind this tragic event, immersing readers in a tale of horror and community resilience.

A collection of articles on the highways and byways of mathematics. The book is written in the tradition of Martin Gardner and aims to be both entertaining and fascinating.

Someone is eating priests, Inspector Scrope, and it's got to stop.

In the days before personal computers, BASIC was the easy programming language to learn, and serious programmers learned FORTRAN or COBOL to do real work. Many people have discovered that Perl is both a great beginning programming language and one that enables them to write powerful programs with little effort. schovat popis

'Listen. The Sanctuary of the Redeemers is named after a damned lie for there is no redemption that goes on there and less sanctuary.'The Sanctuary of the Redeemers: vast, desolate, hopeless. Where children endure brutal cruelty and violence in the name of the One True Faith.Lost in the Sanctuary's huge maze of corridors is a boy: his age uncertain, his real name unknown. They call him Cale. He is strange and secretive, witty and charming - and violent. But when he opens the wrong door at the wrong time he witnesses an act so horrible he must flee, or die.The Redeemers will go to any lengths to get Cale back.Not because of the secret he has discovered.But because of a more terrifying secret that lies undiscovered in himself.

In the final installment of the epic Cale and the Sanctuary of Redeemers series, Thomas Cale grapples with a harrowing truth: his brutal training was designed to annihilate humanity, deemed God's greatest mistake. Hunted by Pope Redeemer Bosco, the man who transformed him into the Angel of Death, Cale embodies a complex paradox—arrogant yet innocent, generous yet pitiless. Having already toppled a powerful civilization using his extraordinary destructive abilities, he now faces a personal crisis; his soul is deteriorating, and his body is failing him. As the day of reckoning approaches, Cale's thirst for vengeance drives him back to the Sanctuary, where he confronts his greatest enemy. He must come to terms with being the embodiment of divine wrath and make a pivotal choice: to oppose the Sanctuary of the Redeemers or unleash his devastating powers upon the world. The fate of humanity hinges on his decision. This conclusion to the trilogy promises a gripping blend of epic heroism and moral complexity, appealing to fans of heroic fiction. Paul Hoffman, acclaimed for his previous works, delivers a thrilling narrative that captivates from the first chapter to the last.

The epic story of Thomas Cale-introduced so memorably in "The Left Hand of God"--continues as the Redeemers use his prodigious gifts to further their sacred goal: the extinction of humankind and the end of the world. To the warrior-monks known as the Redeemers, who rule over massive armies of child slaves, "the last four things" represent the culmination of a faithful life. Death. Judgement. Heaven. Hell. The last four things represent eternal bliss-or endless destruction, permanent chaos, and infinite pain. Perhaps nowhere are the competing ideas of heaven and hell exhibited more clearly than in the dark and tormented soul of Thomas Cale. Betrayed by his beloved but still marked by a child's innocence, possessed of a remarkable aptitude for violence but capable of extreme tenderness, Cale will lead the Redeemers into a battle for nothing less than the fate of the human race. And though his broken heart foretells the bloody trail he will leave in pursuit of a personal peace he can never achieve, a glimmer of hope remains. The question even Cale can't answer: When it comes time to decide the fate of the world, to ensure the extermination of humankind or spare it, what will he choose? To express God's will on the edge of his sword, or to forgive his fellow man-and himself?