Explain this
God Created the Integers
How the publisher describes it:
“Stephen Hawking's personal choice of the greatest mathematical works in history. He allows the reader to peer into the mind of genius by providing us with excerpts from original mathematical proofs and results. He also helps us understand the progression of mathematical thought, and the very foundations of our presentday technologies. The book includes landmark discoveries spanning 2500 years and representing the work of mathematicians such as Euclid, Georg Cantor, Kurt Godel, Augustin Cauchy, Bernard Riemann and Alan Turing.”
Review by Peter Hall
In brief:
No mathematics library would be complete without the texts of the great mathematicians who have shaped the face of mathematics - this is an excellent way of acquiring so many texts in one volume.
“Excerpts from thirty-one of the most important works in the history of mathematics”
This is a daunting book to pick up - it spans almost 1200 pages - but then it is also trying to span the complete history of mathematics. From Euclid to Turing passing Archimedes, Diophantus, Descartes, Newton, Laplace, Fourier, Gauss, Cauchy, Boole, Riemann, Weierstrass, Dedekind, Cantor, Lebesgue and Gödel.
Showcasing excerpts from thirty-one of the most important works in the history of mathematics (four of which have been translated into English for the very first time) this book is a celebration of the mathematicians who helped move us forward in our understanding of the world and who paved the way for our current age of science and technology. So opens the introduction and sets the high standard which the book endeavours to keep to.
The idea of the book is very simple - explain a little about the mathematician, reprint his work with additional commentary and footnotes to give the reader every chance of enlightenment.
This is a very worthy book and I’m keen to have the time to read further - as one of the students in the first GCSE cohort I’m aware that much geometry passed me by as a child. My time at university never entirely clarified the point of Fourier transforms - perhaps my understanding can be completed now. I rather suspect I’ll need to read this book with a pencil and paper at my side, to try ideas - so that I can follow in the footsteps of giants and trace the history as I read along.
No mathematics library would be complete without the texts of the great mathematicians who have shaped the face of mathematics - this is an excellent way of acquiring so many texts in one volume.
This may well be the best 1200 pages for today’s mathematicians.
Peter Hall • AST Mathematics, Imberhorne School, East Grinstead
Paperback: 1184 pages
Publisher: Penguin (7 Sep 2006)
Language English
ISBN-10: 014101878X
ISBN-13: 978-0141018782
Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 13 x 5.4 cm
