A History of Mathematics

Front Cover
American Mathematical Soc., 1999 - Mathematics - 524 pages
This Fifth Edition (1991) of a book first published in 1893 covers the period from antiquity to the close of World War I, with major emphasis on advanced mathematics and, in particular, the advanced mathematics of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In one concise volume this unique book presents an interesting and reliable account of mathematics history for those who cannot devote themselves to an intensive study. The book is a must for personal and departmental librariesalike.Cajori has mastered the art of incorporating an enormous amount of specific detail into a smooth-flowing narrative. The Index--for example--contains not just the 300 to 400 names one would expect to find, but over 1,600. And, for example, one will not only find John Pell, but will learn who he was and some specifics of what he did (and that the Pell equation was named erroneously after him). In addition, one will come across Anna J. Pell and learn of her work on biorthogonal systems; one willfind not only H. Lebesgue but the not unimportant (even if not major) V.A. Lebesgue. Of the Bernoullis one will find not three or four but all eight. One will find R. Sturm as well as C. Sturm; M. Ricci as well as G. Ricci; V. Riccati as well as J.F. Riccati; Wolfgang Bolyai as well as J. Bolyai; themathematician Martin Ohm as well as the physicist G.S. Ohm; M. Riesz as well as F. Riesz; H.G. Grassmann as well as H. Grassmann; H.P. Babbage who continued the work of his father C. Babbage; R. Fuchs as well as the more famous L. Fuchs; A. Quetelet as well as L.A.J. Quetelet; P.M. Hahn and Hans Hahn; E. Blaschke and W. Blaschke; J. Picard as well as the more famous C.E. Picard; B. Pascal (of course) and also Ernesto Pascal and Etienne Pascal; and the historically important V.J. Bouniakovskiand W.A. Steklov, seldom mentioned at the time outside the Soviet literature.
 

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Contents

THE BABYLONIANS
1
THE EGYPTIANS
9
THE GREEKS
15
Greek Arithmetic and Algebra
52
THE ROMANS
63
THE MAYA
69
THE CHINESE
71
THE JAPANESE
78
Descartes to Newton
175
Newton to Euler
192
Euler Lagrange and Laplace
233
THE NINETEENTH AND EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURIES
280
Synthetic Geometry
288
Analytic Geometry
311
Algebra
331
Analysis
369

THE HINDUS
83
THE ARABS
99
EUROPE DURING THE MIDDLE AGES
113
Translation of Arabic Manuscripts
118
The First Awakening and its Sequel
120
EUROPE DURING THE SIXTEENTH SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES
132
Vieta to Descartes
147
Theory of Functions
413
Theory of Numbers
436
Applied Mathematics
449
EDITORS NOTES
489
INDEX
499
Copyright

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Page 9 - At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters.

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