Contemporary science. Encyclopedia. Vol. 3: mathematics and mechanics. (Q2728733)

This volume contains 29 elementary articles in mathematics and 13 elementary articles in mechanics each of which is based on a lecture given by the authors for secondary school teachers in the framework of the ``International Soros Science Educational Program'' and aimed at presenting contemporary developments in mathematics and mechanics on an elementary level understandable for secondary school teachers and pupils. NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEMost of the papers included in this volume were previously published in the ``Soros Educational Journal'' and were individually reviewed by Zentralblatt MATH. We mention here a few of them: NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINE\textit{V. A. Uspenskij}, How number theory helps cryptography (Russian), Soros. Obraz. Zh. 1996, No. 6(7), 122-127 (1996; Zbl 0880.94005), \textit{Eh. B. Vinberg}, Kaleidoscopes (Russian), Soros. Obraz. Zh. 1997, No. 2(15), 121-127 (1997; Zbl 0880.52007), \textit{V. V. Zhikov}, Fractals (Russian), Soros. Obraz. Zh. 1996, No. 12(13), 109-117 (1996; Zbl 0880.28003), and \textit{S. I. Spivak}, What is ``financial mathematics'' (Russian), Soros. Obraz. Zh. 1996, No. 8(9), 123-127 (1996; Zbl 0880.62106).NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEOn the other hand, the book under review also contains some previously unpublished papers; see, for example, the paper by \textit{V. D. Mazurov}, Classification of finite simple groups -- is it a legend or a fact? (Russian), pp. 23-26.