The Mathematics of the Gods and the Algorithms of Men: A Cultural History
A masterful cultural history of mathematics from bestselling Italian mathematician and philosopher Paolo Zellini.

Is mathematics a discovery or an invention? Have we invented numbers or do they truly exist? What sort of reality should we attribute to them? Mathematics has always been a way of understanding and ordering the world: from sacred ancient texts and pre-Socratic philosophers to twentieth-century logicians such as Russell and Frege and beyond. In this masterful, elegant book, mathematician and philosopher Paolo Zellini offers a brief cultural and intellectual history of mathematics, from ancient Greece to India to our contemporary obsession with algorithms, showing how mathematical thinking is inextricably linked with philosophical, existential and religious questions—and indeed with our cosmic understanding of the world.
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The Mathematics of the Gods and the Algorithms of Men: A Cultural History
A masterful cultural history of mathematics from bestselling Italian mathematician and philosopher Paolo Zellini.

Is mathematics a discovery or an invention? Have we invented numbers or do they truly exist? What sort of reality should we attribute to them? Mathematics has always been a way of understanding and ordering the world: from sacred ancient texts and pre-Socratic philosophers to twentieth-century logicians such as Russell and Frege and beyond. In this masterful, elegant book, mathematician and philosopher Paolo Zellini offers a brief cultural and intellectual history of mathematics, from ancient Greece to India to our contemporary obsession with algorithms, showing how mathematical thinking is inextricably linked with philosophical, existential and religious questions—and indeed with our cosmic understanding of the world.
11.99 In Stock
The Mathematics of the Gods and the Algorithms of Men: A Cultural History

The Mathematics of the Gods and the Algorithms of Men: A Cultural History

by Paolo Zellini
The Mathematics of the Gods and the Algorithms of Men: A Cultural History

The Mathematics of the Gods and the Algorithms of Men: A Cultural History

by Paolo Zellini

eBook

$11.99 

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Overview

A masterful cultural history of mathematics from bestselling Italian mathematician and philosopher Paolo Zellini.

Is mathematics a discovery or an invention? Have we invented numbers or do they truly exist? What sort of reality should we attribute to them? Mathematics has always been a way of understanding and ordering the world: from sacred ancient texts and pre-Socratic philosophers to twentieth-century logicians such as Russell and Frege and beyond. In this masterful, elegant book, mathematician and philosopher Paolo Zellini offers a brief cultural and intellectual history of mathematics, from ancient Greece to India to our contemporary obsession with algorithms, showing how mathematical thinking is inextricably linked with philosophical, existential and religious questions—and indeed with our cosmic understanding of the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781643134154
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Publication date: 05/05/2020
Sold by: SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format: eBook
Pages: 240
File size: 3 MB

About the Author

Paolo Zellini is a professor of mathematics at the University of Rome, where his research focuses on numerical analysis and the evolution of mathematical thought. He is the author of the international bestseller A Brief History of Infinity. He lives in Rome. Translator Erica Segre is the acclaimed translator of Carlo Rovelli's many bestselling books for Penguin.

Table of Contents

Introduction 3

1 Abstraction, Existence and Reality 11

2 Mathematics of the Gods 20

3 Mathematical and Philosophical Formulas 36

4 Growth and Decrease, Number and Nature 43

5 Katà gnómonos phýsin: The Nature of the Gnomon 55

6 Dýnamis: The Capacity to Produce 61

7 Intermission: Spiritual Mechanics 72

8 Zeno's Paradoxes: The Explanation of Movement 76

9 The Paradoxes of Plurality 89

10 The Limited and the Limitless: Incommensurability and Algorithms 97

11 The Reality of Numbers: Cantor's Fundamental Sequences 114

12 The Reality of Numbers: Dedekind's Sections 125

13 Mathematics: A Discovery or an Invention? 139

14 From the Continuum to the Digital 144

15 The Growth of Numbers 157

16 The Growth of Matrices 165

17 The Crisis of Fundamentals and the Growth of Complexity: Reality and Efficiency 183

18 Verum et Factum 192

19 Recursion and Invariability 196

Notes 201

Index 229

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