Mathematics and its History

Rating:
Summary: Relationship between algebra and geometry
Review: It is a very good book. It has presented very clearly some difficult-to-understand relationship especially the link between algebra and geometry. It is a very good balance - history, Mathmatics, biography all mixed very well together. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Relationship between algebra and geometry
Review: It is a very good book. It has presented very clearly some difficult-to-understand relationship especially the link between algebra and geometry. It is a very good balance - history, Mathmatics, biography all mixed very well together. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: concise and well written summary of mathematics
Review: Stillwell covers a lot of ground in a short undergraduate text intended to unify various mathematical disciplines. Naturally, _Mathematics_and_its_History_ begins with the early Greeks and in particular geometry (which is how mathematics was typically expressed then). The development of algebra and polynomial forms is described followed by perspective geometry. The invention of calculus and the closely related discovery of infinite series provide the backdrop for short biographies of prominent mathematicians (mostly dead white males to multicultural deconstructionists). The development of elliptic integrals (used in solving functions with specified boundary conditions such as a Neumann problem found in fluid mechanics). The treatment then diverges to physical problems including the vibrating string and hydrodynamics, together with a note on the renown Bernoulli family. Then Stillwell returns to the esoteric in complex numbers, topology, group theory and logic with some comments on computation at the end. Some mathematicians may find the overview to lack comprehensiveness, but the book's brevity for each topic and biographical notes present a balanced approach to the more casual reader about this important field of study and how it developed.

Rating:
Summary: concise and well written summary of mathematics
Review: Stillwell covers a lot of ground in a short undergraduate text intended to unify various mathematical disciplines. Naturally, _Mathematics_and_its_History_ begins with the early Greeks and in particular geometry (which is how mathematics was typically expressed then). The development of algebra and polynomial forms is described followed by perspective geometry. The invention of calculus and the closely related discovery of infinite series provide the backdrop for short biographies of prominent mathematicians (mostly dead white males to multicultural deconstructionists). The development of elliptic integrals (used in solving functions with specified boundary conditions such as a Neumann problem found in fluid mechanics). The treatment then diverges to physical problems including the vibrating string and hydrodynamics, together with a note on the renown Bernoulli family. Then Stillwell returns to the esoteric in complex numbers, topology, group theory and logic with some comments on computation at the end. Some mathematicians may find the overview to lack comprehensiveness, but the book's brevity for each topic and biographical notes present a balanced approach to the more casual reader about this important field of study and how it developed.

Rating:
Summary: see below
Review: This is an overall good text. It offers a very in depth history of many many mathematical ideas. It gets quite technical at times, which can be a good or bad thing, depending on what you are looking for.

Rating:
Summary: see below
Review: This is an overall good text. It offers a very in depth history of many many mathematical ideas. It gets quite technical at times, which can be a good or bad thing, depending on what you are looking for.