MATH308: Historical Development of Mathematical Concepts and Ideas

add URL to eBook 2/18/2020

While all of us regularly use basic math symbols such as those for plus, minus, and equals, few of us know that many of these symbols weren’t available before the sixteenth century. What did mathematicians rely on for their work before then? And how did mathematical notations evolve into what we know today? In Enlightening Symbols, popular math writer Joseph Mazur explains the fascinating history behind the development of our mathematical notation system. He shows how symbols were used initially, how one symbol replaced another over time, and how written math was conveyed before and after symbols became widely adopted.
Reviewed by MAA's Convergence

This is the definitive presentation of the history, development and philosophical significance of non-Euclidean geometry as well as of the rigorous foundations for it and for elementary Euclidean geometry, essentially according to Hilbert. Appropriate for liberal arts students, prospective high school teachers, math. majors, and even bright high school students. The first eight chapters are mostly accessible to any educated reader; the last two chapters and the two appendices contain more advanced material, such as the classification of motions, hyperbolic trigonometry, hyperbolic constructions, classification of Hilbert planes and an introduction to Riemannian geometry.
Reviewed by MAA Convergence
See also the MAA Review by P. N. Ruane.

Along with the writings of Hilbert's friend and correspondent Frege, Hilbert's Foundations of Geometry set the stage for Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica. Hilbert presents a new axiomatization of geometry to algebra, and introduces the distinction between mathematics and metamathematics, with a new theory of proof.

Exciting, hands-on approach to understanding fundamental underpinnings of modern arithmetic, algebra, geometry and number systems, by examining their origins in early Egyptian, Babylonian and Greek sources. Students can do division like the ancient Egyptians, solve quadratic equations like the Babylonians, and more.

This book is part of the Springer eBook collection.

Mathematics Across Cultures: A History of Non-Western Mathematics consists of essays dealing with the mathematical knowledge and beliefs of cultures outside the United States and Europe. In addition to articles surveying Islamic, Chinese, Native American, Aboriginal Australian, Inca, Egyptian, and African mathematics, among others, the book includes essays on Rationality, Logic and Mathematics, and the transfer of knowledge from East to West. The essays address the connections between science and culture and relate the mathematical practices to the cultures which produced them. Each essay is well illustrated and contains an extensive bibliography. Because the geographic range is global, the book fills a gap in both the history of science and in cultural studies. It should find a place on the bookshelves of advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and scholars, as well as in libraries serving those groups.

Unabridged reprint of the classic 1897 edition, with supplement of 1912. The complete works of antiquity's great geometer appear here in a highly accessible English translation by a distinguished scholar. Remarkable for his range of thought and his mastery of treatment, Archimedes addressed such topics as the famous problems of the ratio of the areas of a cylinder and an inscribed sphere; the measurement of a circle; the properties of conoids, spheroids, and spirals; and the quadrature of the parabola. This edition offers an informative introduction with many valuable insights into the ancient mathematician's life and thought as well as the views of his contemporaries. Modern mathematicians, physicists, science historians, and logicians will find this volume a source of timeless fascination.
Reviewed by MAA Reviews

This classic study by the eminent Dutch historian of science E. J. Dijksterhuis (1892-1965) presents the work of the Greek mathematician and mechanical engineer to the modern reader. With meticulous scholarship, Dijksterhuis surveys the whole range of evidence on Archimedes' life and the 2000-year history of the manuscripts and editions of the text, and then undertakes a comprehensive examination of all the extant writings. Originally published in 1987. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Reviewed in MacTutor

This book documents the history of pi from the dawn of mathematical time to the present. One of the beauties of the literature on pi is that it allows for the inclusion of very modern, yet accessible, mathematics. The articles on pi collected herein include selections from the mathematical and computational literature over four millennia, a variety of historical studies on the cultural significance of the number, and an assortment of anecdotal, fanciful, and simply amusing pieces.
Reviewed by MAA Reviews

The history of pi, says the author, though a small part of the history of mathematics, is nevertheless a mirror of the history of man. Petr Beckmann holds up this mirror, giving the background of the times when pi made progress -- and also when it did not, because science was being stifled by militarism or religious fanaticism.

From the Ishango Bone of central Africa and the Inca quipu of South America to the dawn of modern mathematics, The Crest of the Peacock makes it clear that human beings everywhere have been capable of advanced and innovative mathematical thinking. George Gheverghese Joseph takes us on a breathtaking multicultural tour of the roots and shoots of non-European mathematics. He shows us the deep influence that the Egyptians and Babylonians had on the Greeks, the Arabs' major creative contributions, and the astounding range of successes of the great civilizations of India and China. The third edition emphasizes the dialogue between civilizations, and further explores how mathematical ideas were transmitted from East to West. The book's scope is now even wider, incorporating recent findings on the history of mathematics in China, India, and early Islamic civilizations as well as Egypt and Mesopotamia. With more detailed coverage of proto-mathematics and the origins of trigonometry and infinity in the East, The Crest of the Peacock further illuminates the global history of mathematics.

Based on extensive research in Sanskrit sources, Mathematics in India chronicles the development of mathematical techniques and texts in South Asia from antiquity to the early modern period. Kim Plofker reexamines the few facts about Indian mathematics that have become common knowledge--such as the Indian origin of Arabic numerals--and she sets them in a larger textual and cultural framework. The book details aspects of the subject that have been largely passed over in the past, including the relationships between Indian mathematics and astronomy, and their cross-fertilizations with Islamic scientific traditions. Plofker shows that Indian mathematics appears not as a disconnected set of discoveries, but as a lively, diverse, yet strongly unified discipline, intimately linked to other Indian forms of learning.
Reviewed by MAA Reviews

Chronicles algebra's history from the days of Abraham to the work of nineteenth-century mathematicians Niels Henrik Abel and Évariste Galois and through the twentieth century, examining the math and showing that the development of algebra was the development of a new way of thinking.
Reviewed by MAA Convergent
See also the MAA Review by Luiz Henrique de Figueiredo.

Full title: A dissertation on the use of the negative sign in algebra : Containing a Demonstration of The Rules usually given concerning it; and shewing How Quadratic and Cubic Equations may be explained, without the Consideration of Negative Roots. To which is added, as an Appendix, Mr. Machin's Quadrature of the Circle. By Francis Maseres, M. A. Fellow of Clare-Hall, Cambridge.