Within this two-volume edition, Professor Smith covers the entire history of mathematics in the Near and Far East and the West, from primitive number concepts to the calculus. His account is distinguished by impeccable scholarship combined with unusual clarity and readability. Footnotes add many technical points outside the book's actual line of development and direct the reader to disputed matters and source readings. Hundreds of illustrations from Egyptian papyri, Hindu, Chinese, and Japanese manuscripts, Greek and Roman texts, Medieval treatises, maps, portraits, etc. are used along with modern graphs and diagrams. Every major figure from Euclid to Descartes, Gauss, and Riemann and hundreds of lesser-known figures — Theon of Smyrna, Rabbi ben Ezra, Radulph of Laon, Mersenns, Benedetti, and more — are considered both with respect to specific problems and with an awareness of their overall influence on mathematics. Volume II: Special Topics, considering mathematics in terms of arithmetic geometry, algebra, trig, calculus, calculating machines, and other specific fields and problems. 192 Topics for Discussion. 195 illustrations. Index.

This ground-breaking book investigates how the learning and teaching of mathematics can be improved through integrating the history of mathematics into all aspects of mathematics education: lessons, homework, texts, lectures, projects, assessment, and curricula. It draws upon evidence from the experience of teachers as well as national curricula, textbooks, teacher education practices, and research perspectives across the world. It includes a 300-item annotated bibliography of recent work in the field in eight languages.

The interest earned on a bank account, the arrangement of seeds in a sunflower, and the shape of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis are all intimately connected with the mysterious number e. In this informal and engaging history, Eli Maor portrays the curious characters and the elegant mathematics that lie behind the number. Designed for a reader with only a modest mathematical background, this biography brings out the central importance of e to mathematics and illuminates a golden era in the age of science.

Medieval Europe was a meeting place for the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic civilizations, and the fertile intellectual exchange of these cultures can be seen in the mathematical developments of the time. This sourcebook presents original Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic sources of medieval mathematics, and shows their cross-cultural influences. Most of the Hebrew and Arabic sources appear here in translation for the first time. Readers will discover key mathematical revelations, foundational texts, and sophisticated writings by Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic-speaking mathematicians, including Abner of Burgos's elegant arguments proving results on the conchoid—a curve previously unknown in medieval Europe; Levi ben Gershon’s use of mathematical induction in combinatorial proofs; Al-Mu’taman Ibn Hūd’s extensive survey of mathematics, which included proofs of Heron’s Theorem and Ceva’s Theorem; and Muhyī al-Dīn al-Maghribī’s interesting proof of Euclid’s parallel postulate. The book includes a general introduction, section introductions, footnotes, and references. The Sourcebook in the Mathematics of Medieval Europe and North Africa will be indispensable to anyone seeking out the important historical sources of premodern mathematics.

The focus of this book is the fundamental influence of the cyphering tradition on mathematics education in North American colleges, schools, and apprenticeship training classes between 1607 and 1861. It is the first book on the history of North American mathematics education to be written from that perspective. The principal data source is a set of 207 handwritten cyphering books that have never previously been subjected to careful historical analysis.

Discover essays by leading scholars on the history of mathematics from ancient to modern times in European and non-European cultures.

The invention of numbers is perhaps the greatest achievement of the human mind-- virtually everything in our lives is digital, numerical, quantified. However, the origins of these numbers has until now been unknown. Amir Aczel crisscrosses the world, scouring dusty, moldy texts, cross-examining self-proclaimed experts with wildly differing theories, to discover where the so-called Hindu-Arabic numerals come from. It is this search that leads him to explore uncharted territory, to go on a grand quest into India, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and ultimately into the wilds of Cambodia. There he is blown away to find the earliest zero-- the keystone of our entire system of numbers-- on a crumbling, vine-covered wall of a seventh-century temple adorned with eaten-away erotic sculptures. While on this odyssey, Aczel meets a host of fascinating characters: academics in search of truth, jungle trekkers looking for adventure, surprisingly honest politicians, shameless smugglers, and treacherous archaeological thieves-- who finally reveal where our numbers come from. Aczel takes the reader on a fascinating ride-- Front book jacket flap.