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Arithmetical Books from the Invention of Printing to the Present Time
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158 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2004
3 people want to read
About the author
Augustus de Morgan
294 books12 followersBritish mathematician Augustus de Morgan rigorously defined the technique of induction and greatly contributed to the development of symbolic logic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustu...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustu...
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 20, 2017
A fascinating read that is much more than a traditional bibliographic tome. I came upon it via David Eugene Smith's Rara Arithmetica (1908). Smith's book referenced the work of De Morgan and I always wanted to read it. The volume I have (1970) includes a reprint of the original Rara Arithmetica, along with its 1939 addenda and a full reprint of Augustus De Morgan's Arithmetical Books from the Invention of Printing to the Present Time (1847), the book I'm reviewing here.
De Morgan's book is filled not only with bibliographic detail of each volume, but also insights into the history of the book, the author or the times. This is the same format that Smith would follow 60 plus years later. But, I feel that De Morgan has longer entries and had a little more fun with them. One example is Gaspar Lax's Arithmetica Speculativa (1515). De Morgan writes that it's a very obtuse description of 250 pages with no example of a number higher than 100. He jokes that that must be how high the author could count (pp. 11-12 original, 590-591 in my volume). Another less cheeky example is of Valentine Menher de Kempten's "Practicque pour brievement apprendre à Cifrer..." (1565). He notes that this volume as well as other French works from the time period use the terms septante and nonante for 70 and 90 (p. 23 original, 602 in my volume). In most contemporary French-speaking countries, we use soixante-dix and quatre-vingt-dix (60+10 and 4 20's + 10). In Belgium, however, they do use these two terms for those numbers. Kempten's book was published in Antwerp. I'm such a geek for loving this little bit of trivia!
One interesting quirk that drove me nuts at first was that De Morgan spelled out the date for his entries. So, instead of 1515, he'd write "fifteen fifteen". But, the author addressed it and it makes total sense (pp. x-xi, 561-562 in my volume). He said it's easier to proofread as well as to not accidentally transpose digits, something that is quite possible when dates abound in volumes like these.
De Morgan's book is filled not only with bibliographic detail of each volume, but also insights into the history of the book, the author or the times. This is the same format that Smith would follow 60 plus years later. But, I feel that De Morgan has longer entries and had a little more fun with them. One example is Gaspar Lax's Arithmetica Speculativa (1515). De Morgan writes that it's a very obtuse description of 250 pages with no example of a number higher than 100. He jokes that that must be how high the author could count (pp. 11-12 original, 590-591 in my volume). Another less cheeky example is of Valentine Menher de Kempten's "Practicque pour brievement apprendre à Cifrer..." (1565). He notes that this volume as well as other French works from the time period use the terms septante and nonante for 70 and 90 (p. 23 original, 602 in my volume). In most contemporary French-speaking countries, we use soixante-dix and quatre-vingt-dix (60+10 and 4 20's + 10). In Belgium, however, they do use these two terms for those numbers. Kempten's book was published in Antwerp. I'm such a geek for loving this little bit of trivia!
One interesting quirk that drove me nuts at first was that De Morgan spelled out the date for his entries. So, instead of 1515, he'd write "fifteen fifteen". But, the author addressed it and it makes total sense (pp. x-xi, 561-562 in my volume). He said it's easier to proofread as well as to not accidentally transpose digits, something that is quite possible when dates abound in volumes like these.
Displaying 1 of 1 review