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A Short Account of the History of Mathematics
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Product Description
This text remains one of the clearest, most authoritative and most accurate works in the field. The standard history treats hundreds of figures and schools instrumental in the development of mathematics—from the Phoenicians to such 19th-century giants as Grassman, Galois, Riemann.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #1033063 in Books
- Published on: 1960-06-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Paperback
- 522 pages
Editorial Reviews
From the Back Cover
Only someone with the background of W.W. Rouse Ball could cover the origins of math with such breadth and expertise. Ball is the author of many respected textbooks and has worked with the foremost authorities in the field from all over Europe.
From the early Greek influences to the middle ages and the renaissance to the end of the 19th-century, trace the fascinating foundation of mathematics as it developed through the ages.
Customer Reviews
a solid overview of centuries of math
This book is a readable account of the history of math from ancient times down to the 20th century. I particulary liked the history of Greek math and then Indian and Arab math -- those chapters were especially well done. It's amazing that not much happened mathematically speaking until practically the renaissance -- the burning of the library of Alexandria really held up most signficant developments. The other terrific chapters were on Newton and Leibnitz, plus all the French and Italian mathematicians like LaPlace and Legrange. I sometimes wished for a bit more biographical anecdotes, but the author covers hundreds of mathematicians. My only small gripe is that he quotes extensive sections in Latin and French with no translation as if we all have a perfect reading knowledge of these languages, even the 16th century versions complete with archaic terms. Still, this book is a good reference and overview of major math developments. I had some trouble following all the math, but I'm not a mathematician either.
Classic history
This is a classic history of mathematics and is surprisingly readable considering it was first published in 1912. It covers math from ancient times up to the late 19th century. It was interesting to read about how math developed down through the centuries, and who the famous mathematicians were and their contributions. I was most in interested in developments since the Renaissance, but I also enjoyed the author's coverage of the Middle Ages and Arabic contributions to algebra. For example, you'll learn about Al-Khwarizmi, Abu-Kamil, and Al Karaji. In the Middle Ages there was Leonardo Fibonacci of Pisa (who gave his name to the famous fibonacci series), who lived in the 13th century (not to be confused with da Vinci who lived later), and was so renowned for his abilities that a competition was once staged by the Holy Roman Emperor to demonstrate his prowess. In fact, these sorts of math contests were quite common in the Middle Ages, which I didn't know about. Three questions were posed, such as give a number that when increased or decreased by 5 remains a square, and Leonardo was the only contestant to get all three right. Leonardo also was one of the first to introduce the Hindu/Arabic number system into Europe. He wrote a number of books, of which several survive today, which made him a celebrity as much for his writing talents as for his mathematical abilities during his lifetime, and the true extent of his contributions wasn't recognized until recent times. He is considered the most important mathematical theorist after Diophantus of Alexandria until Fermat in the 17th century--a span of 2000 years. But he is only one of hundreds of important mathematicians whose contributions are discussed. This book is still a very readable classic history that is still a valuable resource on the subject almost 100 years later.
