This fascinating exploration of the great discoveries of history's most important mathematicians seeks an answer to the eternal question: Does mathematics hold the key to understanding the mysteries of the physical world?

Nicolas Bourbaki, whose mathematical publications began to appear in the late 1930s and continued to be published through most of the twentieth century, was a direct product as well as a major force behind an important revolution that took place in the early decades of the twentieth century that completely changed Western culture. Pure mathematics, the area of Bourbaki's work, seems on the surface to be an abstract field of human study with no direct connection with the real world. In reality, however, it is closely intertwined with the general culture that surrounds it. Major developments in mathematics have often followed important trends in popular culture; developments in mathematics have acted as harbingers of change in the surrounding human culture. The seeds of change, the beginnings of the revolution that swept the Western world in the early decades of the twentieth century — both in mathematics and in other areas — were sown late in the previous century. This is the story both of Bourbaki and the world that created him in that time. It is the story of an elaborate intellectual joke — because Bourbaki, one of the foremost mathematicians of his day — never existed.

A "skillful and literate" ( New York Times Book Review ) biography of the persecuted genius who helped create the modern computer. To solve one of the great mathematical problems of his day, Alan Turing proposed an imaginary computer. Then, attempting to break a Nazi code during World War II, he successfully designed and built one, thus ensuring the Allied victory. Turing became a champion of artificial intelligence, but his work was cut short. As an openly gay man at a time when homosexuality was illegal in England, he was convicted and forced to undergo a humiliating "treatment" that may have led to his suicide. With a novelist's sensitivity, David Leavitt portrays Turing in all his humanity?his eccentricities, his brilliance, his fatal candor?and elegantly explains his work and its implications.

The son of a prominent Japanese mathematician who came to the United States after World War II, Ken Ono was raised on a diet of high expectations and little praise. Rebelling against his pressure-cooker of a life, Ken determined to drop out of high school to follow his own path. To obtain his father's approval, he invoked the biography of the famous Indian mathematical prodigy Srinivasa Ramanujan, whom his father revered, who had twice flunked out of college because of his single-minded devotion to mathematics. Ono describes his rocky path through college and graduate school, interweaving Ramanujan's story with his own and telling how at key moments, he was inspired by Ramanujan and guided by mentors who encouraged him to pursue his interest in exploring Ramanujan's mathematical legacy. Picking up where others left off, beginning with the great English mathematician G.H. Hardy, who brought Ramanujan to Cambridge in 1914, Ono has devoted his mathematical career to understanding how in his short life, Ramanujan was able to discover so many deep mathematical truths, which Ramanujan believed had been sent to him as visions from a Hindu goddess. And it was Ramanujan who was ultimately the source of reconciliation between Ono and his parents. Ono's search for Ramanujan ranges over three continents and crosses paths with mathematicians whose lives span the globe and the entire twentieth century and beyond. Along the way, Ken made many fascinating discoveries. The most important and surprising one of all was his own humanity

To most graph theorists there are two outstanding landmarks in the history of their subject. One is Euler's solution of the Konigsberg Bridges Problem, dated 1736, and the other is the appearance of Denes Konig's textbook in 1936. "From Konigsberg to Konig's book" sings the poetess, "So runs the graphic tale . . . " [10]. There were earlier books that took note of graph theory. Veb len's Analysis Situs, published in 1931, is about general combinato rial topology. But its first two chapters, on "Linear graphs" and "Two-Dimensional Complexes," are almost exclusively concerned with the territory still explored by graph theorists. Rouse Ball's Mathematical Recreations and Essays told, usually without proofs, of the major graph-theoretical advances ofthe nineteenth century, of the Five Colour Theorem, of Petersen's Theorem on I-factors, and of Cayley's enumerations of trees. It was Rouse Ball's book that kindled my own graph-theoretical enthusiasm. The graph-theoretical papers of Hassler Whitney, published in 1931-1933, would have made an excellent textbook in English had they been collected and published as such. But the honour of presenting Graph Theory to the mathe matical world as a subject in its own right, with its own textbook, belongs to Denes Konig. Low was the prestige of Graph Theory in the Dirty Thirties. It is still remembered, with resentment now shading into amuse ment, how one mathematician scorned it as "The slums of Topol ogy.""

"From the time of Pythagoras, we have been tempted to treat numbers as the ultimate or only truth. This book tells the history of that habit of thought. But more, it argues that the logic of counting sacrifices much of what makes us human, and that we have a responsibility to match the objects of our attention to the forms of knowledge that do them justice. Humans have extended the insights and methods of number and mathematics to more and more aspects of the world, even to their gods and their religions.Today those powers are greater than ever, as computation is applied to virtually every aspect of human activity.But the rules of mathematics do not strictly apply to many things-from elementary particles to people-in the world.By subjecting such things to the laws of logic and mathematics, we gain some kinds of knowledge, but we also lose others. How do our choices about what parts of the world to subject to the logics of mathematics affect how we live and how we die?This question is rarely asked, but it is urgent, because the sciences built upon those laws now govern so much of our knowledge, from physics to psychology.Number and Knowledge sets out to ask it. In chapters proceeding chronologically from Ancient Greek philosophy and the rise of monotheistic religions to the emergence of modern physics and economics, the book traces how ideals, practices, and habits of thought formed over millennia have turned number into the foundation-stone of human claims to knowledge and certainty.But the book is also a philosophical and poetic exhortation to take responsibility for that history, for the knowledge it has produced, and for the many aspects of the world and of humanity that it ignores or endangers.To understand what can be counted and what can't is to embrace the ethics of purposeful knowing"--

The acclaimed author of A Tour of the Calculus and The Infinite Ascent offers an enlightening and enthralling tour of the basics of mathematics, and reveals a world of fascination in fundamental mathematical ideas. One, Two, Three is David Berlinski’s captivating exploration of the foundation of mathematics, its fundamental ideas, and why they matter. By unraveling the complex answers to these most elementary questions—What is a number? How do addition, subtraction, and other functions actually work? What are geometry and logic?—Berlinski reveals the intricacy behind their seemingly simple exteriors. Peppered with enlightening historical anecdotes and asides on some of history’s most fascinating mathematicians, One, Two, Three, revels in the beauty of numbers as Berlinski shows us how and why these often slippery concepts are as essential to the field of mathematics as to who we are.

First published originally in German in 1921, "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" is the only book-length philosophical work by Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein published during his lifetime. Based upon notes made during his time serving in World War I, the treatise is composed of 526 numbered declarative statements that are presented without argument and were seen by Wittgenstein as being self-evident. Wittgenstein's style is succinct and sparse and his ideas are presented in a highly logical, organized, and scientific manner. Wittgenstein proposes that the solution to all major philosophical problems can be solved only with logic and a scientific analysis of language and its meaning. His idea that philosophy is not about metaphysics and mysticism, but about critical and rational thought led to a massive shift in philosophical theories after its publication. The treatise was influential with many of the "logical positivists" of the Vienna Circle, such as Rudolf Carnap and Friedrich Waismann, and to philosophers such as Bertrand Russell. Considered one of the most significant and influential philosophical works of the twentieth century, this treatise is an important read for any student of the history of language and ideas. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.

This is a book of entertaining problems that can be solved through the use of algebra, problems with intriguing plots to excite the readers curiosity, amusing excursions into the history of mathematics, unexpected uses that algebra is put to in everyday affairs, and more. Algebra Can Be Fun has brought hundreds of thousands of youngsters into the fold of mathematics and its wonders. It is written in the form of lively sketches that discuss the multifarious (and exciting!) applications of algebra to the world about us. Here we encounter equations, logarithms, roots, progressions, the ancient and famous Diophantine analysis and much more. The examples are pictorial, vivid, often witty and bring out the essence of the matter at hand. There are numerous excursions into history and the history of algebra too. No one who has read this book will ever regard mathematics again in a dull light" Reviewers regard it as one of the finest examples of popular science writing.

Abraham A. Fraenkel was a world-renowned mathematician in pre–Second World War Germany, whose work on set theory was fundamental to the development of modern mathematics. A friend of Albert Einstein, he knew many of the era’s acclaimed mathematicians personally. He moved to Israel (then Palestine under the British Mandate) in the early 1930s. In his autobiography Fraenkel describes his early years growing up as an Orthodox Jew in Germany and his development as a mathematician at the beginning of the twentieth century. ​This memoir, originally written in German in the 1960s, has now been translated into English, with an additional chapter covering the period from 1933 until his death in 1965 written by the editor, Jiska Cohen-Mansfield. Fraenkel describes the world of mathematics in Germany in the first half of the twentieth century, its origins and development, the systems influencing it, and its demise. He also paints a unique picture of the complex struggles within the world of Orthodox Jewry in Germany. In his personal life, Fraenkel merged these two worlds during periods of turmoil including the two world wars and the establishment of the state of Israel. Including a new foreword by Menachem Magidor Foreword to the 1967 German edition by Yehoshua Bar-Hillel

Would you like to add columns of numbers as quickly as you can read them, or do multiplication without carrying numbers? How about doing complex subtraction or long division problems in mere seconds? Well, now anyone can become a math whiz with this amazing mathematical system that can have you solving problems in addition, subtraction, division and multiplication as fast as any calculator and with an even greater degree of precision. It's based on the same idea used in the Asian abacus, but it requires no more equipment than a pencil and paper. Now shoppers will always know if they're really getting the best deal on groceries, salespeople can compute and track their commissions with ease, and students can complete homework faster and more accurately than ever before. This system has already been proven successful for thousands the world over, and now you can put it to work for you too.

Sets and Numbers for the Very Young This boy has two cars with which he hears, One nose that he blows. Two lips with which he sips. Two hands on which he sometimes stands. This girl is on her way to school. Her clothes are clean and neat. She has two hats upon her head. And one shoe on her feet. Ears, lips, hands, feet, fingers, hats, shoes-all come in sets. Many things come in sets. They may be sets of ten or two, one or three or a thousand. A number tells how many. With sets and numbers you learn about adding and taking away, about matching and comparing, about putting together and taking apart, about left and right, about before and after, about counting. Open this book and begin to see all that you can learn from sets and numbers. About the Authors IRVING ADLER, whose book The New Mathematics was the first on its subject for the adult general reader, wrote this book for very young children with his wife Ruth. The holder of a Ph.D. in pure mathematics from Columbia University, Irving Adler was an instructor in math at Columbia as well as at Bennington College and was formerly head of the mathematics department of a New York City public high school. His wife Ruth taught mathematics in public schools In the Greater New York area. Ruth Adler died in 1968, one year prior to the publication of this book by The John Day Company. Irving Adler had 87 titles to his name when he passed away in 2012, at almost 100 years of age. His books were published in 31 countries, in 19 different languages. About the Illustrator PEGGY ADLER is the daughter of Irving and Ruth Adler and author of BearManor's Peggy's Puzzles - Volume One (2023) and Pallenberg Wonder Bears - From The Beginning (2022). Previously, she authored the 2019, award winning pictorial history, Images of America CLINTON (Arcadia) and five books for New York City publishers (The John Day Company & Franklin Watts). Additionally, Ms Adler illustrated two dozen books and provided art for the Bronx Zoo; the Humane Society of the United States; Little, Brown & Company and many others. She also coordinated the 1969 World Premiere of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for 20th Century Fox and in 1991, served as a consultant to the U.S. House of Representatives' October Surprise Task Force. She's a Marquis Who's Who Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement honoree; a 2001 recipient of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers' General Richard G. Stilwell Award; a former police commissioner; and currently chairs the Town of Clinton, Connecticut's Historic District Commission.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The transformation of mathematics from its ancient Greek practice to its development in the medieval Arab-speaking world is approached by focusing on a single problem proposed by Archimedes and the many solutions offered. From a practice of mathematics based on the localized solution (originating in the polemical practices of early Greek science), we see a transition to a practice of mathematics based on the systematic approach (grounded in the deuteronomic practices of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages). A radically new interpretation is accordingly offered of the historical trajectory of pre-modern mathematics.

This is the fourth volume of "The Collected Mathematical Papers of James Joseph Sylvester," documenting the prolific output of the renowned 19th-century mathematician. James Joseph Sylvester (1814-1897) made significant contributions to algebra, number theory, geometry, and invariant theory. This collection, meticulously compiled and edited, offers a comprehensive view of his work, showcasing his innovative approaches and profound insights. Edited by H. F. Baker, this volume makes Sylvester's groundbreaking research accessible to modern mathematicians, historians of science, and anyone with an interest in the development of mathematical thought. Sylvester's papers are valuable not only for their mathematical content but also for their historical context, providing a glimpse into the mathematical landscape of the 19th century. This collection is an essential resource for understanding the evolution of modern mathematics and the enduring legacy of one of its most influential figures. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

"Theory of Functionals: And of Integral and Integro-Differential Equations" is a foundational treatise in the field of mathematical analysis, representing the culmination of Vito Volterra's pioneering research into the calculus of variations and the generalization of functions. As one of the most significant figures in late 19th and early 20th-century mathematics, Volterra introduces a systematic approach to functionals-functions that depend on other functions-providing a rigorous framework for what is now known as functional analysis. The work explores the properties of integral and integro-differential equations, detailing their development and their profound implications for both pure mathematics and mathematical physics. Volterra examines the transition from finite-dimensional space to infinite-dimensional space, offering insights into the behavior of systems where the current state depends on past history. Edited and expanded from his influential lectures, this volume serves as an essential resource for understanding the historical development of modern analysis. It remains a vital reference for mathematicians and physicists interested in the evolution of linear operators and the mathematical modeling of complex physical phenomena. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you may see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.