Is this a novel? Or a biography? Graeme Cohen is so close to his true life subject, that imagined events and conversations seem exactly real. Martin Gardiner, colonial Australia’s most published mathematician, was better at attracting supporters and women than at caring for them, or protecting himself. Cohen’s warts and all story is true to ......
Numerals and Their Peculiarities in Mathematics and Beyond
We see numbers on automobile license plates, addresses, weather reports, and, of course, on our smartphones. Yet we look at these numbers for their role as descriptors, not as an entity in and unto themselves. Each number has its own history of meaning, usage, and connotation in the larger world. The Secret Lives of Numbers takes readers on a ......
Mathematics today is the fruit of centuries of brilliant insights by men and women whose personalities and life experiences were often as extraordinary as their mathematical achievements. This entertaining history of mathematics chronicles those achievements through fifty short biographies that bring these great thinkers to life while making their ......
We all learned that the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter is called pi and that the value of this algebraic symbol is roughly 3.14. What we weren't told, though, is that behind this seemingly mundane fact is a world of mystery, which has fascinated mathematicians from ancient times to the present. Simply put, pi is weird. ......
We measure historyits defining moments, landmark documents, and great figuresby dates. The French Revolution began in 1789, the Magna Carta was originally issued in 1215, and Julius Caesar died in the year 44 BC. What makes these dates correct, though? Is it possible that there is a massive gap in the historical record and that the calendar ......
Accounts of the seventeenth-century Jesuit Mission to China have often celebrated it as the great encounter of two civilizations. The Jesuits portrayed themselves as wise men from the West who used mathematics and science in service of their mission. Chinese literati-official Xu Guangqi (1562-1633), who collaborated with the Italian Jesuit Matteo ......
Join sensational drag queen Kyne Santos on an extraordinary journey through the glamorous world of... math?
This sassy book is your VIP pass, taking you behind the scenes with a TikTok superstar who shatters stereotypes and proves that math can be fascinating and fun, even ......
A Codex From Late Antique Business Education (P.Math.)
A comprehensive edition and commentary of a late antique codex Mathematics, Metrology, and Model Contracts is a comprehensive edition and commentary of a late antique codex. The codex contains mathematical problems, metrological tables, and model contracts. Given the nature of the contents, the format, and quality of the Greek, the editors ......
Did you grow up thinking math is boring? It's time to reconsider. This book will teach you everything you ever wondered about numbers--and more. How and why did human beings first start using numbers at the dawn of history? Would numbers exist if we Homo sapiens weren't around to discover them? What's so special about weird numbers like pi and the ......
A treasure for anyone interested in early modern India and the history of mathematics, this first English translation of the Siddhantasundara reveals the fascinating work of the scholar-astronomer Jñanaraja (circa 1500 C.E.). Toke Lindegaard Knudsen begins with an introduction to the traditions of ancient Hindu astronomy and describes what is ......
The Remarkable Role of Evolution in the Making of Mathematics
In this accessible and illuminating study of how the science of mathematics developed, a veteran math researcher and educator looks at the ways in which our evolutionary makeup is both a help and a hindrance to the study of math. Artstein chronicles the discovery of important mathematical connections between mathematics and the real world from ......
A Comprehensive Dictionary of Latin, Greek, and Arabic Roots
Do you ever wonder about the origins of mathematical terms such as ergodic, biholomorphic, and strophoid? Here Anthony Lo Bello explains the roots of these and better-known words like asymmetric, gradient, and average. He provides Greek, Latin, and Arabic text in its original form to enhance each explanation. This sophisticated, one-of-a-kind ......
Requiring no more than high-school-level math competency, this playful excursion through the nuances of math will give you a better grasp of this fundamental, all-important science. Veteran math educators demonstrate how some ""magnificent mistakes"" had profound consequences for our understanding of mathematics' key concepts. In the nineteenth ......
Everyone knows what a triangle is, yet very few people appreciate that the common three-sided figure holds many intriguing "secrets." Requiring no more than a basic understanding of mathematics, this book reveals various geometrical properties, and gives readers insight into different aspects of geometry.
We measure historyits defining moments, landmark documents, and great figuresby dates. The French Revolution began in 1789, the Magna Carta was originally issued in 1215, and Julius Caesar died in the year 44 BC. What makes these dates correct, though? Is it possible that there is a massive gap in the historical record and that the calendar ......
A monumental accomplishment in the history of nonWestern mathematics, The Chinese Roots of Linear Algebra explains the fundamentally visual way Chinese mathematicians understood and solved mathematical problems. It argues convincingly that what the West ''discovered'' in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had already been known to the ......
Highways, Pathways, and Byways in the History of Mathematics
This seminal collection gathers together many general writings of one of the world's leading historians of mathematics. Organized thematically, these essays ponder the intellectual underpinnings of the field, examine the major topics in the history of mathematics, and recount the bizarre history of pseudomath. Ivor Grattan-Guinness explores how ......
Highways, Pathways, and Byways in the History of Mathematics
This seminal collection gathers together many general writings of one of the world's leading historians of mathematics. Organized thematically, these essays ponder the intellectual underpinnings of the field, examine the major topics in the history of mathematics, and recount the bizarre history of pseudomath. Ivor GrattanGuinness explores how ......