A History of Mathematics: From Mesopotamia to Modernity

by Luke Hodgkin

A History of Mathematics covers the evolution of mathematics through time and across the major Eastern and Western civilizations. It begins in Babylon, then describes the trials and tribulations of the Greek mathematicians. The important, and often neglected, influence of both Chinese and Islamic mathematics is covered in detail, placing the description of early Western mathematics in a global context. The book concludes with modern mathematics, covering recent developments such as the advent of the computer, chaos theory, topology, mathematical physics, and the solution of Fermat's Last Theorem. Containing more than 100 illustrations and figures, this text, aimed at advanced undergraduates and postgraduates, addresses the methods and challenges associated with studying the history of mathematics. The reader is introduced to the leading figures in the history of mathematics (including Archimedes, Ptolemy, Qin Jiushao, al-Kashi, al-Khwasizmi, Galileo, Newton, Leibniz,
Helmholtz, Hilbert, Alan Turing, and Andrew Wiles) and their fields. An extensive bibliography with cross-references to key texts will provide invaluable resource to students and exercises (with solutions) will stretch the more advanced reader.

Genres: Mathematics, History, Science

296 pages, Hardcover

First published June 2, 2005

Reviews

[Slawi Dimitrov · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was quite interesting as an overview of what mathematics was even done throughout history, and made me realise that mathematical research as we know it now is quite new, and to look for the development of new techniques one has to dig through history to find examples until the start of the scientific revolution. This is also why the first few chapters feel more like a collection of case studies of (pre) medieval scholars' work and later the book becomes a grand overview of how mathematics was done from around 1650 onwards. Enjoyable and illuminating read, and especially the chapters on mathematics outside europe were extremely interesting and new to me.

Also the book has exersizes like "perform this computation with your own set of chinese counting rods" or "Calculate this fraction in the babylonian mixen number base system", and for all the contexts described there are such exersizes, which I found both extremely fun and quite illuminating.