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Finding Zero: A Mathematician's Odyssey to Uncover the Origins of Numbers
Amir D. Aczel · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorA History of π
Petr Beckmann · 204 pages
The history of pi, says the author, though a small part of the history of mathematics, is nevertheless a mirror of the history of man. Petr Beckmann holds up this mirror, giving the background of the times when pi made progress and also when it did not, because science was being stifled by militarism or religious fanaticism. The mathematical level of this book is flexible, and there is plenty for
Unknown Quantity: A Real and Imaginary History of Algebra
John Derbyshire · 374 pages
The Man of Numbers: Fibonacci's Arithmetic Revolution
Keith J. Devlin · 192 pages
From NPR's Math Guy, the story of Leonardo of Pisa, the medieval mathematician who introduced Arabic numbers to the West and helped launch the modern era. In 1202, a young Italian published one of the most influential books of all time, introducing modern arithmetic to Western Europe. Leonardo of Pisa (better known today as Fibonacci) had learned the Hindu-Arabic number system when as a teenager h
Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty
Morris Kline · 448 pages
The Poincaré Conjecture: In Search of the Shape of the Universe
Donal O'Shea · 304 pages
Conceived in 1904, the Poincaré conjecture, a puzzle that speaks to the possible shape of the universe and lies at the heart of modern topology and geometry, has resisted attempts by generations of mathematicians to prove or to disprove it. Despite a million-dollar prize for a solution, Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman, posted his solution on the Internet instead of publishing it in a peer-
Fermat's Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem
Simon Singh · 336 pages
xn + yn = zn, where n represents 3, 4, 5, ...no solution "I have discovered a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain." With these words, the seventeenth-century French mathematician Pierre de Fermat threw down the gauntlet to future generations. What came to be known as Fermat's Last Theorem looked simple; proving it, however, became the Holy
A History of Mathematics
Carl B. Boyer, Uta C. Merzbach · 717 pages
Develops world contributions to mathematics, from the inception of numbers and geometry to modern probability and Bourbaki's mathematics.
Men of Mathematics
Eric Temple Bell · 591 pages
A collection of biographies describing the lives and achievements of 29 mathematicians. Includes Zeno, Descartes, Fermat, Pascal, Newton, and Leibniz.
Why Beauty Is Truth: A History of Symmetry
Ian Stewart · 290 pages
Euclid's Window: The Story of Geometry from Parallel Lines to Hyperspace
Leonard Mlodinow · 306 pages
Physicist/writer Mlodinow leads us on a journey through five revolutions in geometry, from the Greek concept of parallel lines to the latest notions of hyperspace. Here is a new alternative history of math revealing how simple questions anyone might ask about space have been the hidden engine of the highest achievements in science and technology. The journey goes from Pythagoras through Gauss and
The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century
David Salsburg · 352 pages
Discusses how statistics have changed the field of science in the twentieth century, focusing on the theories and ideas of famous scientists and thinkers.
E: The Story of a Number
Eli Maor · 234 pages
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 biograp
The Music of the Primes: Searching to Solve the Greatest Mystery in Mathematics
Marcus du Sautoy · 351 pages
Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea
Charles Seife · 248 pages
The Babylonians invented it, the Greeks banned it, the Hindus worshiped it, and the Church used it to fend off heretics. Now it threatens the foundations of modern physics. For centuries the power of zero savored of the demonic; once harnessed, it became the most important tool in mathematics. For zero, infinity’s twin, is not like other numbers. It is both nothing and everything. In Zero, Scie
Prisoner's Dilemma
William Poundstone · 290 pages
Watching players bluff in a poker game inspired John von Neumann--father of the modern computer and one of the sharpest minds of the century--to construct game theory, a mathematical study of conflict and deception. Game theory was embraced at the RAND Corporation, the think tank charged with formulating military strategy for the atomic age, and in 1950 two RAND scientists discovered the "prisoner
The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World
Edward Dolnick · 398 pages
Infinitesimal: How a Dangerous Mathematical Theory Shaped the Modern World
Amir Alexander · 368 pages
Explores "the epic battle over a mathematical concept that shook the old order and shaped the world as we know it. On August 10, 1632, five leaders of the Society of Jesus convened in a somber Roman palazzo to pass judgment on a simple idea: that a continuous line is composed of distinct and limitlessly tiny parts. The doctrine would become the foundation of calculus, but on that fateful day the j
Isaac Newton
James Gleick · 272 pages
"In this biography, James Gleick moves between a comprehensive historical portrait and a dramatic focus on Newton's significant letters and unpublished notebooks to illuminate the real importance of his work in physics, in optics, and in calculus. He makes us see the old intuitive, alchemical universe out of which Newton's mathematics first arose and shows us how Newton's ideas have altered all fo
Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data
Charles Wheelan · 304 pages
The field of statistics is rapidly transforming into a discipline that Hal Varian at Google has called "sexy". And with good reason; from batting averages and political polls to game shows and medical research, the real-world application of statistics is growing by leaps and bounds. In this book the author demystifies the study of statistics by stripping away the arcane and technical details to ge
What Is Mathematics?: An Elementary Approach to Ideas and Methods
Richard Courant, Ian Stewart · 521 pages
Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel
Rebecca Goldstein · 260 pages
"An introduction to the life and thought of Kurt Gödel, who transformed our conception of math forever" -- Provided by publisher.
Mathematics: From the Birth of Numbers
Jan Gullberg · 1,093 pages
Gullberg attempts to "bring together the history of mathematics with a broad treatment of its foundations," including numbers and their symbols, the four fundamental rules of arithmetic, calculus, matrices and determinants, differential equations, algebra, the theory of functions, geometry, trigonometry, hyperbolic functions, analytic geometry, number theory, symbolic logic, set theory, Boolean al
The Fractal Geometry of Nature
Benoit B. Mandelbrot · 468 pages