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The Story of Mathematics
The mysterious tally sticks of prehistoric peoples and the terrestrial maps used for trade, exploration, and warfare; the perennial fascination with the motions of heavenly bodies and changed perspectives on the art and science of all are testament to a mathematics at the heart of history. This visually stunning volume takes the reader on an illustrated tour of mathematics across cultures and civilizations, bringing to life a world of important ideas and-rarely supposed-great intrigue and charm.
The development of mathematics can be seen in a wealth of images, from the richly illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages to the deeply unsettling art of Dali and Duchamp, from the austere beauty of Babylonian clay tablets to the delicate complexity of computer-generated pictures. These images, and many others, are lavishly reproduced to accompany a text that travels from the dawn of Chinese and Indian civilizations to the scientific and digital revolutions of our day.
Including portraits of household names such as Kepler and Copernicus as well as lesser-known but equally compelling figures like Niels Henrik Abel and Leonhard Euler, The Story of Mathematics is a rich amalgam of history, biography, and popular science. Readers will come away understanding how and why mathematics evolved as it did--of how it entered and remained close to the center of every area of human activity. Explaining mathematical concepts without equations, Richard Mankiewicz enables us to appreciate this essential intellectual occupation without "doing the math."
The development of mathematics can be seen in a wealth of images, from the richly illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages to the deeply unsettling art of Dali and Duchamp, from the austere beauty of Babylonian clay tablets to the delicate complexity of computer-generated pictures. These images, and many others, are lavishly reproduced to accompany a text that travels from the dawn of Chinese and Indian civilizations to the scientific and digital revolutions of our day.
Including portraits of household names such as Kepler and Copernicus as well as lesser-known but equally compelling figures like Niels Henrik Abel and Leonhard Euler, The Story of Mathematics is a rich amalgam of history, biography, and popular science. Readers will come away understanding how and why mathematics evolved as it did--of how it entered and remained close to the center of every area of human activity. Explaining mathematical concepts without equations, Richard Mankiewicz enables us to appreciate this essential intellectual occupation without "doing the math."
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 5, 2023
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.
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.
April 26, 2018
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.
The book includes many illustrative quotations, but in my edition these were written in such as bizarre font as to make them almost illegible.
November 29, 2012
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.
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.
January 1, 2016
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.
October 8, 2011
Fascinating read of the history of math, from the first recorded scratchings on cave walls to modern theories.
December 14, 2012
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!
August 10, 2016
Interesting. Pacts a lot in.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews