Making up Numbers: A History of Invention in Mathematics

Making up Numbers: A History of Invention in Mathematics
Author :
Publisher : Open Book Publishers
Total Pages : 282
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781800640979
ISBN-13 : 1800640978
Rating : 4/5 (978 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Making up Numbers: A History of Invention in Mathematics by : Ekkehard Kopp

Download or read book Making up Numbers: A History of Invention in Mathematics written by Ekkehard Kopp and published by Open Book Publishers. This book was released on 2020-10-23 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Making up Numbers: A History of Invention in Mathematics offers a detailed but accessible account of a wide range of mathematical ideas. Starting with elementary concepts, it leads the reader towards aspects of current mathematical research. The book explains how conceptual hurdles in the development of numbers and number systems were overcome in the course of history, from Babylon to Classical Greece, from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, and so to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The narrative moves from the Pythagorean insistence on positive multiples to the gradual acceptance of negative numbers, irrationals and complex numbers as essential tools in quantitative analysis. Within this chronological framework, chapters are organised thematically, covering a variety of topics and contexts: writing and solving equations, geometric construction, coordinates and complex numbers, perceptions of ‘infinity’ and its permissible uses in mathematics, number systems, and evolving views of the role of axioms. Through this approach, the author demonstrates that changes in our understanding of numbers have often relied on the breaking of long-held conventions to make way for new inventions at once providing greater clarity and widening mathematical horizons. Viewed from this historical perspective, mathematical abstraction emerges as neither mysterious nor immutable, but as a contingent, developing human activity. Making up Numbers will be of great interest to undergraduate and A-level students of mathematics, as well as secondary school teachers of the subject. In virtue of its detailed treatment of mathematical ideas, it will be of value to anyone seeking to learn more about the development of the subject.


Making up Numbers: A History of Invention in Mathematics Related Books

Making up Numbers: A History of Invention in Mathematics
Language: en
Pages: 282
Authors: Ekkehard Kopp
Categories: Mathematics
Type: BOOK - Published: 2020-10-23 - Publisher: Open Book Publishers

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Making up Numbers: A History of Invention in Mathematics offers a detailed but accessible account of a wide range of mathematical ideas. Starting with elementar
The Crayons' Book of Numbers
Language: en
Pages: 20
Authors: Drew Daywalt
Categories: Juvenile Fiction
Type: BOOK - Published: 2016-10-18 - Publisher: Penguin

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Counting is as easy as 1... 2... purple?... in this charming book of numbers from the creators of the #1 New York Times Best Sellers, The Day the Crayons Quit a
A Brain for Numbers
Language: en
Pages: 394
Authors: Andreas Nieder
Categories: Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2019-11-19 - Publisher: MIT Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

How our intuitive understanding of numbers is deeply rooted in our biology, traceable through both evolution and development. Humans' understanding of numbers i
Rogerson's Book of Numbers
Language: en
Pages: 291
Authors: Barnaby Rogerson
Categories: Reference
Type: BOOK - Published: 2014-10-28 - Publisher: Picador

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

THE STORIES BEHIND OUR ICONIC NUMBERS Rogerson's Book of Numbers is based on a numerical array of virtues, spiritual attributes, gods, devils, sacred cities, po
The Numbers Behind NUMB3RS
Language: en
Pages: 260
Authors: Keith Devlin
Categories: Mathematics
Type: BOOK - Published: 2007-08-28 - Publisher: Penguin

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The companion to the hit CBS crime series Numb3rs presents the fascinating way mathematics is used to fight real-life crime Using the popular CBS prime-time TV