New MAA Book: Who Gave You the Epsilon?

April 29, 2009

Who Gave You the Epsilon? picks up topics in the history of mathematics from where the MAA's popular book Sherlock Holmes in Babylon left its collection of accounts in the eighteenth century. Forty-one expository articles, selected from the MAA journals, continue the story of the development of mathematics into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The book is an ideal reference for those teaching and studying mathematics who want to understand how aspects of mathematical subjects were developed.

The material is arranged thematically to show the development of analysis, geometry and topology, and algebra and number theory. Each chapter offers a foreword, giving the historical background, followed by an afterword, reporting on advances in knowledge and understanding since the articles first appeared in print.

The book contains articles by mathematical luminaries such as J. L. Coolidge, B. L. van der Waerden, Hermann Weyl, and G. H. Hardy. Other contributors include Judith V. Grabiner, Israel Kleiner, Karen D. Rappaport, L. A. Steen, S. L. Zabell, I. Grattan-Guinness, Thomas Archibald, Victor J. Katz, Shawnee L. McMurran, James J. Tattersall, Nkechi Agwu, Luella Smith, Aissatou Barry, Bruce Halsted, Florence P. Lewis, Dan Pedoe, Julian F. Fleron, R. L. Wilder, Peter Hilton, H. C. Kennedy, Joseph W. Dauben, David Fowler, Simon L. Altmann, Karen Hunger Parshall, Eugene Seneta, Josephine E. Burns, Joseph A. Gallian, Tony Rothman, Desmond Fearnley-Sander, Reinhard C. Laubenbacher, David J. Pengelley, Charles Small, L. J. Goldstein, Paul T. Bateman, Harold G. Diamond, Clark H. Kimberling, Fernando Q. Gouvêa, George Bruce Halsted, G. A. Miller, and Philip A. Griffiths.

About the Editors:
Marlow Anderson of The Colorado College has produced a score of research papers and co-authored a monograph on lattice-ordered groups and an undergraduate text on abstract algebra.

Victor J. Katz is the author of A History of Mathematics: An Introduction and the editor of The Mathematics of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India and Islam: A Sourcebook (2007).

Robin J. Wilson has written and edited more than 30 books on the history of mathematics and graph theory. He has won the MAA's Lester R. Ford Award in 1974 for his article "An Introduction of Matroid Theory," and (with Brian Hopkins) its George Pólya Award in 2005 for the article "The Truth About Königsberg."

Who Gave You the Epsilon? And Other Tales of Mathematical History
Marlow Anderson, Victor Katz, and Robin Wilson, editors
431 pp., hardcover, 2009. Series: Spectrum
ISBN: 978-0-88385-569-0

Order Who Gave You the Epsilon? from the MAA Bookstore or call 1.800.331.1622.
List: $65.50
MAA Member Price: $52.50