History of Mathematics: Highways and Byways PDF Download

Author: Amy Dahan-Dalmedico
Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.
ISBN: 1470457466
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
A translation of the original 1986 French edition by Amy Dahan-Dalmedico and Jeanne Peiffer (both from Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris), this eminently readable book places the birth and development of mathematical activity in historical, cultural, and economic context. The book offers an outstanding account, for instance, of how Arabs preserved Greek mathematics and extended it over an 800-year period, from 400-1200. The large number of illustrations supports the text and contributes to a fine read. - Publisher.

Author: Mark Burgin
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9811236852
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
The book is the first in the trilogy which will bring you to the fascinating world of numbers and operations with them. Numbers provide information about myriads of things. Together with operations, numbers constitute arithmetic forming in basic intellectual instruments of theoretical and practical activity of people and offering powerful tools for representation, acquisition, transmission, processing, storage, and management of information about the world.The history of numbers and arithmetic is the topic of a variety of books and at the same time, it is extensively presented in many books on the history of mathematics. However, all of them, at best, bring the reader to the end of the 19th century without including the developments in these areas in the 20th century and later. Besides, such books consider and describe only the most popular classes of numbers, such as whole numbers or real numbers. At the same time, a diversity of new classes of numbers and arithmetic were introduced in the 20th century.This book looks into the chronicle of numbers and arithmetic from ancient times all the way to 21st century. It also includes the developments in these areas in the 20th century and later. A unique aspect of this book is its information orientation of the exposition of the history of numbers and arithmetic.

Author: David Perkins
Publisher: MAA
ISBN: 0883855755
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
The story of how calculus came to be, accessible to anyone with a basic knowledge of geometry and algebra.

Author: Steve Batterson
Publisher: The Mathematical Association of America
ISBN: 0883855909
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
At the turn of the twentieth century, mathematical scholarship in the United States underwent a stunning transformation. In 1890 no American professor was producing mathematical research worthy of international attention. Graduate students were then advised to pursue their studies abroad. By the start of World War I the standing of American mathematics had radically changed. George David Birkhoff, Leonard Dickson, and others were turning out cutting edge investigations that attracted notice in the intellectual centers of Europe. Harvard, Chicago, and Princeton maintained graduate programs comparable to those overseas. This book explores the people, timing, and factors behind this rapid advance. Through the mid-nineteenth century most American colleges followed a classical curriculum that, in mathematics, rarely reached beyond calculus. With no doctoral programs of any sort in the United States until 1860, mathematical scholarship lagged far behind that in Europe. After the Civil War, visionary presidents at Harvard and Johns Hopkins broadened and deepened the opportunities for study. The breakthrough for mathematics began in 1890 with the hiring, in consecutive years, of William F. Osgood and Maxime Bôcher at Harvard and E. H. Moore at Chicago. Each of these young men had studied in Germany where they acquired vital mathematical knowledge and taste. Over the next few years Osgood, Bôcher, and Moore established their own research programs and introduced new graduate courses. Working with other like-minded individuals through the nascent American Mathematical Society, the infrastructure of meetings and journals were created. In the early twentieth century Princeton dramatically upgraded its faculty to give the United States the stability of a third mathematics center. The publication by Birkhoff, in 1913, of the solution to a famous conjecture served notice that American mathematics had earned consideration with the European powers of Germany, France, Italy, England, and Russia.

Author: Judith V. Grabiner
Publisher: MAA
ISBN: 0883855720
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
An inspiring collection of a historian's work on the history of mathematics.

Author: Mircea Pitici
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691153159
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
The year's finest writing on mathematics from around the world This anthology brings together the year's finest mathematics writing from around the world. Featuring promising new voices alongside some of the foremost names in the field, The Best Writing on Mathematics 2011 makes available to a wide audience many articles not easily found anywhere else—and you don't need to be a mathematician to enjoy them. These writings offer surprising insights into the nature, meaning, and practice of mathematics today. They delve into the history, philosophy, teaching, and everyday occurrences of math, and take readers behind the scenes of today's hottest mathematical debates. Here Ian Hacking discusses the salient features that distinguish mathematics from other disciplines of the mind; Doris Schattschneider identifies some of the mathematical inspirations of M. C. Escher's art; Jordan Ellenberg describes compressed sensing, a mathematical field that is reshaping the way people use large sets of data; Erica Klarreich reports on the use of algorithms in the job market for doctors; and much, much more. In addition to presenting the year's most memorable writings on mathematics, this must-have anthology includes a foreword by esteemed physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson. This book belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in where math has taken us—and where it is headed.

Author: Dora Musielak
Publisher: American Mathematical Society
ISBN: 1470471566
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
Sophie Germain overcame gender stigmas and a lack of formal education to prove that for all prime exponents less than 100 Case I of Fermat's Last Theorem holds. Hidden behind a man's name, her brilliance as mathematician was first discovered by three of the greatest scholars of the eighteenth century, Lagrange, Gauss, and Legendre. In Sophie's Diary, Germain comes to life through a fictionalized journal that intertwines mathematics with historical descriptions of the brutal events that took place in Paris between 1789 and 1793. This format provides a plausible perspective of how a young Sophie could have learned mathematics on her own—both fascinated by numbers and eager to master tough subjects without a teacher's guidance. Her passion for mathematics is integrated into her personal life as an escape from societal outrage. Sophie's Diary is suitable for a variety of readers—both young and old, mathematicians and novices—who will be inspired and enlightened on a field of study made easy, as told through the intellectual and personal struggles of an exceptional young woman.

Author: Donald J. Albers
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107135559
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 413

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Book Description
G. H. Hardy ranks among the greatest twentieth-century mathematicians. This book introduces this extraordinary individual and his writing.

Author: David Perkins
Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.
ISBN: 1470447991
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Certain constants occupy precise balancing points in the cosmos of number, like habitable planets sprinkled throughout our galaxy at just the right distances from their suns. This book introduces and connects four of these constants (φ,Π,e, and i), each of which has recently been the individual subject of historical and mathematical expositions. But here we discuss their properties, as a group, at a level appropriate for an audience armed only with the tools of elementary calculus. This material offers an excellent excuse to display the power of calculus to reveal elegant truths that are not often seen in college classes. These truths are described here via the work of such luminaries as Nilakantha, Liu Hui, Hemachandra, Khayyam, Newton, Wallis, and Euler.

Author: Peter Borwein
Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.
ISBN: 1470448742
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
This book aims to shine a light on some of the issues of mathematical creativity. It is neither a philosophical treatise nor the presentation of experimental results, but a compilation of reflections from top-caliber working mathematicians. In their own words, they discuss the art and practice of their work. This approach highlights creative components of the field, illustrates the dramatic variation by individual, and hopes to express the vibrancy of creative minds at work. Mathematicians on Creativity is meant for a general audience and is probably best read by browsing.