A Concise History of Mathematics: Fourth Revised Edition (Dover Books on Mathematics) By texasbeerguide.com
Interesting; different sections may be read independently; so nice that many of these classics are now in ebook form texasbeerguide.com I rather enjoyed reading this Dover classic on mathematics.Yet,there were some problems with the book.It's a vast topic,that's condensed into a rather small book.The author,Dirk J. Struik,did a wonderful job explaining the great giants of global historical mathematics.Now,if you're looking for the math geniuses of the twentith century,however,you'll miss them here.There is an excellent bibliograghy and many important basic formulas presented.The sketch portraits and rare photograghs add an insightful picture of the character of these esteemed numerologists.After reading this text,I found myself wanting to research about their contributions to mathematics.Eventhough,i may be advanced at understanding higher math concepts.This book presents a clear philosophical foundation,often skipped by math instructors today,because of time considerations. So, this book is the ideal text for any fellow math neophyte,who may cringe at the broad scope of classical mathematics. texasbeerguide.com A little hard to follow if you're not prepared for the terminology. But, definitely a cool read. Be warned this author does not use terms in the manner you would normally expect for modern vernacular. texasbeerguide.com It arrived before it was planned, and it is in perfect condition, exactly as described. texasbeerguide.com Good texasbeerguide.com
This compact, well written history first published in 1948, and now in its fourth revised edition describes the main trends in the development of all fields of mathematics from the first available records to the middle of the 20th century. Students, researchers, historians, specialists in short, everyone with an interest in mathematics will find it engrossing and stimulating.Beginning with the ancient Near East, the author traces the ideas and techniques developed in Egypt, Babylonia, China, and Arabia, looking into such manuscripts as the Egyptian Papyrus Rhind, the Ten Classics of China, and the Siddhantas of India. He considers Greek and Roman developments from their beginnings in Ionian rationalism to the fall of Constantinople; covers medieval European ideas and Renaissance trends; analyzes 17th and 18th century contributions; and offers an illuminating exposition of 19th century concepts. Every important figure in mathematical history is dealt with Euclid, Archimedes, Diophantus, Omar Khayyam, Boethius, Fermat, Pascal, Newton, Leibniz, Fourier, Gauss, Riemann, Cantor, and many others. For this latest edition, Dr. Struik has both revised and updated the existing text, and also added a new chapter on the mathematics of the first half of the 20th century. Concise coverage is given to set theory, the influence of relativity and quantum theory, tensor calculus, the Lebesgue integral, the calculus of variations, and other important ideas and concepts. The book concludes with the beginnings of the computer era and the seminal work of von Neumann, Turing, Wiener, and others.The author's ability as a first class historian as well as an able mathematician has enabled him to produce a work which is unquestionably one of the best. Nature Magazine. A Concise History of Mathematics: Fourth Revised Edition (Dover Books on Mathematics)
Great history for anyone with a general education looking to learn about math. I'm using it as a primer to cover the main developments and branches of math, to use as a mental guide for further study of the technical aspects. That's what I needed it for, and it's been exactly what I wanted! Generally very well written and simple to understand, at least for this Philosophy major. texasbeerguide.com This is a classic history of mathematics that I used when I was in college in the 60s. Unfortunately, the Dover edition is poorly done and hard to read. This book is also a bit out of date. One might say that it deals with developments in the early history of math and thus should be up to date. But much has been learned about the early history of math during the past few decades that is naturally missing from this book. Nevertheless, if you are only going to get one book on the subject, this is it. Just get the hard cover version so it is readable. texasbeerguide.com It started out ok, but the last few chapters are just a barrage of names and subjects with no real look at the underlying ideas. The Kindle edition also has problems with some of the formatting, turning exponents into footnotes. texasbeerguide.com When I was student ( from elementary school to university level ), I was never taught of history of mathematics ( at least in an organized and formalized way,sometimes there were references to singular and surprising anecdote as Gauss child summing up the first 100 natural numbers in few seconds). I think this is a lack ( probably it is not possible to teach everything in the already rich school program ) of the educational system. For this reason , enjoying mathematics ( especially the simplest one ), I was looking for something to explain and describe how the mathematical thinking developped with time. At the same time, I did not have much time, so I thought from the title that this book was the right one for my needs. Although all the history of mathematics from its dawn to about 1950 and written in a short book is something very difficult to realize ( if not impossible ), I very reccomend this beautiful book, where the history of mathematics is well explained in terms of main thinking lines. Further this book is rich of interesting anecdotes and details on personal and accademic relations among the greatest mathematicians of all time. texasbeerguide.com This book is best suited for readers with a good knowledge of the various fields of mathematics. It does not expound any technical details, but refers to mathematical results with which one should already be acquainted. The author himself was a mathematician who researched the history of mathematics. The result was the material in this book that contains the names of numerous mathematicians and scientists, and their publications with Latin, French, and German titles. Most of the foreign language titles and quotes have English translation in the footnotes. texasbeerguide.com
