Mathematics and Its History

Front Cover
Springer Science & Business Media, Apr 17, 2013 - Mathematics - 544 pages

From the reviews of the first edition:

"[This book] can be described as a collection of critical historical essays dealing with a large variety of mathematical disciplines and issues, and intended for a broad audience¿ we know of no book on mathematics and its history that covers half as much nonstandard material. Even when dealing with standard material, Stillwell manages to dramatize it and to make it worth rethinking. In short, his book is a splendid addition to the genre of works that build royal roads to mathematical culture for the many." (Mathematical Intelligencer)

This second edition includes new chapters on Chinese and Indian number theory, on hypercomplex numbers, and on algebraic number theory. Many more exercises have been added, as well as commentary to the exercises explaining how they relate to the preceding section, and how they foreshadow later topics.

 

Contents

Arithmetic and Geometry
1
Number Theory in Asia
5
1
12
Noneuclidean Geometry
18
Greek Number Theory
22
Analytic Geometry
105
5
111
Projective Geometry
127
Complex Numbers in Algebra
256
37
258
Complex Numbers and Curves
276
Complex Numbers and Functions
293
Group Theory
365
Hypercomplex Numbers
382
Topology
424
Sets Logic and Computation
454

Calculus
147
Infinite Series
156
The Number Theory Revival
186
Elliptic Functions
209
Mechanics
233
38
483
41
501
120
514
454
519
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Bibliographic information