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"Boyer and Merzbach distill thousands of years of mathematics into this fascinating chronicle. From the Greeks to Godel, the mathematics is brilliant; the cast of characters is distinguished; the ebb and flow of ideas is everywhere evident. And, while tracing the development of European mathematics, the authors do not overlook the contributions of Chinese, Indian, and Arabic civilizations. Without doubt, this is—and will long remain—a classic one-volume history of mathematics and mathematicians who create it." —William Dunham Author, Journey Through Genius, The Great Theorems of Mathematics "When we read a book like A History of Mathematics, we get the picture of a mounting structure, ever taller and broader and more beautiful and magnificent—and with a foundation, moreover, that is as untainted and as functional now as it was when Thales worked out the first geometrical theorems nearly 26 centuries ago." —From the Foreword by Isaac Asimov "One of the most useful and comprehensive general introductions to the subject." —J. W. Dauben The City University of New York "Both readable and scholarly, this book can serve as a fine introduction to the topic and also a reference book." —J. David Bolter University of North Carolina Author of Turing's Man Revised to make it more accessible to a general audience, A History of Mathematics paints a vivid picture of humankind's relationship with numbers. Updated and expanded, it now offers broadened coverage of twentieth century advances in probability and computers, and updated references to further reading. A feature that will be of interest to every reader is an appendix containing an extensive chronological table of mathematical and general historical developments.
Preface to the Third Edition.
Preface to the Second Edition.
Preface to the First Edition.
1 Traces.
Concepts and Relationships.
Early Number Bases.
Number Language and Counting.
Spatial Relationships.
2 Ancient Egypt.
The Era and the Sources.
Numbers and Fractions.
Arithmetic Operations.
"Heap" Problems.
Geometric Problems.
Slope Problems.
Arithmetic Pragmatism.
3 Mesopotamia.
The Era and the Sources.
Cuneiform Writing.
Numbers and Fractions; Sexagesimals.
Positional Numeration.
Sexagesimal Fractions.
Approximations.
Tables.
Equations.
Measurements: Pythagorean Triads.
Polygonal Areas.
Geometry as Applied Arithmetic.
4 Hellenic Traditions.
The Era and the Sources.
Thales and Pythagoras.
Numeration.
Arithmetic and Logistic.
Fifth Century Athens.
Three Classical Problems.
Incommensurability.
Paradoxes of Zeno.
Deductive Reasoning.
Democritus of Abdera.
Mathematics and the Liberal Arts.
The Academy.
Aristotle.
5 Euclid of Alexandria.
Alexandria.
Lost Works.
Extant Works.
The Elements.
6 Archimedes of Syracuse.
The Siege of Syracuse.
On the Equilibriums of Planes.
On Floating Bodies.
The Sand-Reckoner.
Measurement of the Circle.
On Spirals.
Quadrature of the Parabola.
On Conoids and Spheroids.
On the Sphere and Cylinder.
Book of Lemmas.
Semiregular Solids and Trigonometry.
The Method.
7 Apollonius of Perge.
Works and Tradition.
Lost Works.
Cycles and Epicycles.
The Conics.
8 Cross-Currents.
Changing Trends.
Eratosthenes.
Angles and Chords.
Ptolemy's Almagest.
Heron of Alexandria.
Decline of Greek Mathematics.
Nichomachus of Gerasa.
Diophantus of Alexandria.
Pappus of Alexandria.
The End of Alexandrian Dominance.
Proclus of Alexandria.
Boethius.
Athenian Fragments.
Byzantine Mathematicians.
9 Ancient and Medieval China.
The Oldest Known Texts.
The Nine Chapters .
Rod Numerals.
The Abacus and Decimal Fractions.
Values of Pi.
Thirteenth-Century Mathematics.
10 Ancient and Medieval India.
Early Mathematics in India.
The Sulbasutras.
The Siddhantas.
Aryabhata.
Numerals.
Trigonometry.
Multiplication.
Long Division.
Brahmagupta.
Indeterminate Equations.
Bhaskara.
Madhava and the Keralese School.
11 The Islamic Hegemony.
Arabic Conquests.
The House of Wisdom.
Al-Khwarizmi.
‘Abd Al-Hamid ibn-Turk.
Thabit ibn-Qurra.
Numerals.
Trigonometry.
Abu’l-Wefa and Al-Karkhi.
Al-Biruni and Alhazen.
Omar Khayyam.
The Parallel Postulate.
Nasir al-Din al-Tusi.
Al-Kashi.
12 The Latin West.
Introduction.
Compendia of the Dark Ages.
Gerbert.
The Century of Translation.
Abacists and Algorists.
Fibonacci.
Jordanus Nemorarius.
Campanus of Novara.
Learning in the Thirteenth Century.
Archimedes Revived.
Medieval Kinematics.
Thomas Bradwardine.
Nicole Oresme.
The Latitude of Forms.
Infinite Series.
Levi ben Gerson.
Nicholas of Cusa.
Decline of Medieval Learning.
13 The European Renaissance.
Overview.
Regiomontanus.
Nicolas Chuquet’s Triparty.
Luca Pacioli's Summa.
German Algebras and Arithmetics.
Cardan’s Ars Magna.
Rafael Bombelli.
Robert Recorde.
Trigonometry.
Geometry.
Renaissance Trends.
François Viète.
14 Early Modern Problem Solvers.
Accessibility of Computation.
Decimal Fractions.
Notation.
Logarithms.
Mathematical Instruments.
15 Analysis, Synthesis, the Infinite, and Numbers.
Galileo’s Two New Sciences.
Bonaventura Cavalieri.
Evangelista Torricelli.
Mersenne’s Communicants.
Rene´ Descartes.
Fermat’s Loci.
Gregory of St. Vincent.
The Theory of Numbers.
Gilles Persone de Roberval.
Girard Desargues and Projective Geometry.
Blaise Pascal.
Philippe de Lahire.
Georg Mohr.
Pietro Mengoli.
Frans van Schooten.
Jan de Witt.
Johann Hudde.
René François de Sluse.
Christiaan Huygens.
16 British Techniques and Continental Methods.
John Wallis.
James Gregory.
Nicolaus Mercator and William Brouncker.
Barrow’s Method of Tangents.
Newton.
Abraham De Moivre.
Roger Cotes.
James Stirling.
Colin Maclaurin.
Textbooks.
Rigor and Progress.
Leibniz.
The Bernoulli Family.
Tschirnhaus Transformations.
Solid Analytic Geometry.
Michel Rolle and Pierre Varignon.
The Clairauts.
Mathematics in Italy.
The Parallel Postulate.
Divergent Series.
17 Euler.
The Life of Euler.
Notation.
Foundation of Analysis.
Logarithms and the Euler Identities.
Differential Equations.
Probability.
The Theory of Numbers.
Textbooks.
Analytic Geometry.
The Parallel Postulate: Lambert
18 Pre- to Postrevolutionary France.
Men and Institutions.
The Committee on Weights and Measures.
D'Alembert.
Bézout.
Condorcet.
Lagrange.
Monge.
Carnot.
Laplace.
Legendre.
Aspects of Abstraction.
Paris in the 1820s.
Fourier.
Cauchy.
Diffusion.
19 Gauss.
Nineteenth-Century Overview.
Gauss: Early Work.
Number Theory.
Reception of the Disquisitiones Arithmeticae.
Astronomy.
Gauss's Middle Years.
Differential Geometry.
Gauss's Later Work.
Gauss’s Influence.
20 Geometry.
The School of Monge.
Projective Geometry: Poncelet and Chasles.
Synthetic Metric Geometry: Steiner.
Synthetic Nonmetric Geometry: von Staudt.
Analytic Geometry.
Non-Euclidean Geometry.
Riemannian Geometry.
Spaces of Higher Dimensions.
Felix Klein.
Post-Riemannian Algebraic Geometry.
21 Algebra.
Introduction.
British Algebra and the Operational Calculus of Functions.
Boole and the Algebra of Logic.
Augustus De Morgan.
William Rowan Hamilton.
Grassmann and Ausdehnungslehre.
Cayley and Sylvester.
Linear Associative Algebras.
Algebraic Geometry.
Algebraic and Arithmetic Integers.
Axioms of Arithmetic.
22 Analysis.
Berlin and Göttingen at Mid-Century.
Riemann in Göttingen.
Mathematical Physics in Germany.
Mathematical Physics in English-Speaking Countries.
Weierstrass and Students.
The Arithmetization of Analysis.
Dedekind.
Cantor and Kronecker.
Analysis in France.
23 Twentieth Century Legacies.
Henri Poincare.
David Hilbert.
Integration and Measure.
Functional Analysis and General Topology.
Algebra.
Differential Geometry and Tensor Analysis.
Probability.
Bounds and Approximations.
The 1930s and World War II.
Nicolas Bourbaki.
Homological Algebra and Category Theory.
Algebraic Geometry.
Logic and Computing.
The Fields Medals.
24 Recent Trends.
Overview.
The Four-Color Conjecture.
Classification of Finite Simple Groups.
Fermat’s Last Theorem.
Poincaré's Query.
Future Outlook.
References.
General Bibliography.
Index.
Overview
"Boyer and Merzbach distill thousands of years of mathematics into this fascinating chronicle. From the Greeks to Godel, the mathematics is brilliant; the cast of characters is distinguished; the ebb and flow of ideas is everywhere evident. And, while tracing the development of European mathematics, the authors do not overlook the contributions of Chinese, Indian, and Arabic civilizations. Without doubt, this is—and will long remain—a classic one-volume history of mathematics and mathematicians who create it." —William Dunham Author, Journey