The Story of Mathematics by Richard Mankiewicz

by Richard Mankiewicz

"The evolution of science, philosophy, and mathematics, all related, is far more important to the history of humanity than a parade of rulers and a procession of wars." Strong words, but Richard Mankiewicz comes mighty close to backing them up in his fascinating book, The Story of Mathematics . Divided into brief chapters, the book traces the development of mathematics from a baboon's fibula with 29 clearly visible notches (from Swaziland, circa 35,000 B.C.) to the Babylonian sexagesimal--or base 60--number system, which survives to this day in our method of timekeeping, to Euclid's Elements , described as "the most important textbook of all time," to fractals and other Mandelbrot sets. Along the way, Mankiewicz pays tribute to the men and women at the forefront of mathematics, though he's not afraid to dispel some the Pythagorean theorem was widely known in antiquity before Pythagoras was even born, and a 14th-century Chinese manuscript clearly depicts what is now known as "Pascal's Triangle," a good three centuries before Pascal was born. Most entertaining are the chapters on practical applications of astronomy, codemaking and -breaking, military strategy, modern art, and navigation. At times, it is difficult to follow the actual complex mathematics, but the vast majority of the book is readily accessible to the general reader. Filled with beautiful illustrations taken from ancient papyri, medieval manuscripts, scientific instruments, Renaissance painting, and computer-generated art, The Story of Mathematics is a singularly handsome volume and a pleasure to read. --Sunny Delaney

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Mathematics, Science

Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Bernie4444 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of glossy pages and colorful pictures and charts

The copyright for “The History of Mathematics” by Richard Mankiewicz forwarded by Ian Stewart is on the last page instead of the first page. It is two thousand. The font is extremely small to allow for margin notes.

Twenty-four chapters do tell the history of math and the environmental changes around it as well.

From the book:
Mathematics does not just consist of a few arithmetical tricks that you learn in school and then promptly forget when you become an adult. It has an unbroken history of involvement with the mainstream of human culture, a history that has been going on for at least five thousand years.

[Benj · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did enjoy this fascinating history of maths, but every now and then he'd completely lose me. He'd be explaining something interesting, and then suddenly include a new word or concept without explanation. I suspect it's the 'expert' problem - the author knows his stuff so well that he sometimes forgets that his readers are up to speed.

The book includes many illustrative quotations, but in my edition these were written in such as bizarre font as to make them almost illegible.

[Babak Fakhamzadeh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice to see a book on mathematics released through mainstream publishing even though it's a glossy and feels more like a coffee table book. A lot of the book can unfortunately only be of interest to readers with a decent understanding of history and math but then also leaves a very unsatisfactory feeling, glossing over too many explanations, leaving out details that I, for one, would be interested in, having forgotten a lot of the maths I learned at university.

The book's tendency to list problems without explicitly stating either solution or explanation sometimes even is frustrating and as a result, the book's intended audience remains unclear: it's probably too obscure for the average layman and not detailed enough for the inquiring mind.

Interesting bits:
+ The Egyptians were the first to divide the day into 24 units. However, originally, these bits were not of equal length.
+ In answer to Ptolemy's (Alexander's general who founded the dynasty to which Cleopatra was the last heir) request to Euclid for a shortcut to learning geometry, Euclid answered "There is no royal road to geometry".
+ In Islam, the afternoon prayer has to take place when the length of an object's shadow cast at noon has increased by an amount equal to the height of the object itself.

[Bernard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I used this book when I took a course in the history of mathematics and it was very interesting to see the techniques that the Egyptians, Greeks, etc. used to solve problems. We also had to utilize their techniques in class to solve problems (e.g. finding the roots of polynomials with a compass and straightedge, constructing rational numbers with Egyptian fractions, etc.) without the use of modern mathematics and it was pretty neat.

[Leah Webber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating read of the history of math, from the first recorded scratchings on cave walls to modern theories.

[Cassandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Se lit super facilement, plein de belles images... Ça fait réaliser quel immense chemin a été parcouru depuis les premières civilisations et combien c'est beau les maths!

[Mckinley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting. Pacts a lot in.