The History of Mathematics - A Reader

John Fauvel and Jeremy Gray, Editors
Sold exclusively in the United States by the MAA

This book contains a wide selection of readings in the history of mathematics from earliest times to the twentieth century. The variety if siurces chosen illuminates several different approaches to the subject that range from discussion of the origins of counting to the application of electronic computers and from Euclid's Elements to Cantor's continuum hypothesis. Mathematicians reflect on the nature and purpose of their art, on what it is about, and how is should be taught. Several biographical entries and many discussions by historians of mathematics are included.

There is a considerable range of mathematical writings at all levels, presented in a chronological ordering which helps to show how the sujbect has developed. So one can see, for example, how the methods and approach of Descartes' La Geometrie gradually diffused into every area of the subject and how Newton's Principia raised questions about the motion of the moon which were actively bedated in the ensuing century. Many of the items in this collection have been translated into English for the first time.

Catalog Code: HMR
640pp., Paperbound, 1996, ISBN 0-222-42791-2
List: $37.00 MAA Member: $29.00

Ordering Information