Quote:
Originally Posted by Katti's Cat
Hope someone can help. I have a sudden urge to read about the history if mathematics.  Now, I am no Einstein nor would I want to become one.
I have read previously "The Parrots Theorem" by Denis Guedj and enjoyed it but want to know more.
I am still reading "Science - A History 1543-2001" by John Gribbin. This is very informative and I love reading it but as I have it as pBook and it weighs too much I only read small sections of it - hence it takes so long.
So, want book do I want - I am looking for recommendations for books about the history of mathematics, outlining where they come from, what it is about. At this stage I am not so much interested in books about specific maths, more the general kind.
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I can't help you with a book recommendation. That said, you may find the following anecdote amusing...
When I was a Freshman at Carnegie Mellon (too many years ago!) one of my roommates was enrolled in the "Math Studies" honors mathematics program. The
course called "Math Studies" was a 24-unit monster--equivalent to
three heavy math/science courses--that aimed to cover all of undergraduate mathematics in four semesters.
Starting from first principles!
(Of course the idea was that they'd start in on graduate math courses for their Jr. and Sr. years. But I digress.)
Sometime in December, my roommate came back from his math studies class looking totally boggled. When I asked what was up, he said "We learned to
add today!"
It turned out that they'd finally covered enough of the underpinnings of mathematics to understand
why addition works -- after
only 2.5 semesters-worth of an Honors-level undergraduate math course!
Xenophon
(whose brain still hurts when thinking about it...)