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A History of Mathematics
Embark on an epic journey through the history of human curiosity and ingenuity, tracing the story of mathematics from its earliest glimmers in prehistoric times to the cutting-edge frontiers of the 21st century. This book casts aside the intimidating image of formulas and theorems to reveal what mathematics truly a vibrant, sprawling, and deeply human narrative. Discover how the need to count livestock, measure land, and navigate the seas gave birth to the fundamental concepts of number and geometry, and how these practical tools were developed and refined by the world's first great civilizations in the fertile river valleys of Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Follow the trail of knowledge as it travels across continents and centuries. Witness the monumental shift in ancient Greece, where mathematics was transformed from a practical tool into a philosophical pursuit, a quest for abstract truth and logical proof that culminated in the timeless work of Euclid. Journey to India, the birthplace of our modern number system and the revolutionary concept of zero, and then to the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, where scholars in the Islamic Golden Age synthesized and dramatically expanded upon ancient knowledge, creating the new sciences of algebra and trigonometry.
As this rich inheritance filters back into Europe, it sparks a renaissance in thought, becoming a vital tool for artists mastering perspective, merchants managing international trade, and navigators charting new worlds. This intellectual ferment culminates in one of history's greatest the invention of calculus by Newton and Leibniz, the language of change that powered the Scientific Revolution. The story then accelerates, chronicling the explosive creativity of geniuses like Euler and Gauss, the shocking discovery of non-Euclidean geometries that shattered two millennia of certainty, and the development of abstract algebra that forever changed our understanding of structure and symmetry.
Arrive in the modern era, where the quest for logical certainty paradoxically reveals the inherent limits of formal systems and lays the theoretical groundwork for the digital age. Learn how the abstract inquiries of Alan Turing led to the creation of the computer, and how number theory became the foundation for the cryptography that secures our digital world. From the elegant geometry that underpins Einstein’s theory of relativity to the mind-bending discoveries of chaos theory and fractals, this history brings the story to the present day, culminating in the dramatic solving of Fermat's Last Theorem and a look at the great unsolved problems that continue to challenge the world's greatest minds.
Follow the trail of knowledge as it travels across continents and centuries. Witness the monumental shift in ancient Greece, where mathematics was transformed from a practical tool into a philosophical pursuit, a quest for abstract truth and logical proof that culminated in the timeless work of Euclid. Journey to India, the birthplace of our modern number system and the revolutionary concept of zero, and then to the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, where scholars in the Islamic Golden Age synthesized and dramatically expanded upon ancient knowledge, creating the new sciences of algebra and trigonometry.
As this rich inheritance filters back into Europe, it sparks a renaissance in thought, becoming a vital tool for artists mastering perspective, merchants managing international trade, and navigators charting new worlds. This intellectual ferment culminates in one of history's greatest the invention of calculus by Newton and Leibniz, the language of change that powered the Scientific Revolution. The story then accelerates, chronicling the explosive creativity of geniuses like Euler and Gauss, the shocking discovery of non-Euclidean geometries that shattered two millennia of certainty, and the development of abstract algebra that forever changed our understanding of structure and symmetry.
Arrive in the modern era, where the quest for logical certainty paradoxically reveals the inherent limits of formal systems and lays the theoretical groundwork for the digital age. Learn how the abstract inquiries of Alan Turing led to the creation of the computer, and how number theory became the foundation for the cryptography that secures our digital world. From the elegant geometry that underpins Einstein’s theory of relativity to the mind-bending discoveries of chaos theory and fractals, this history brings the story to the present day, culminating in the dramatic solving of Fermat's Last Theorem and a look at the great unsolved problems that continue to challenge the world's greatest minds.
205 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 3, 2025
About the author
Conrad Johnson
15 books47 followersI READ NOTHING BUT SKIES AND THE BIBLE THESE DAYS.
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