History of Mathematics, Vol. 1 (General Survey of the History of Elementary Mathematics)

By David Eugene Smith

Book Overview

Volume 1 of a two-volume history -- from Egyptian papyri and medieval maps to modern graphs and diagrams. Non-technical chronological survey with thousands of biographical notes, critical evaluations,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0486204294
• ISBN13: 9780486204291
• Release Date: June 1958
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Length: 618 Pages
• Weight: 1.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.4" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A lot more interesting than I imagined!

It takes talent to write such an interesting book about the history (sometimes considered a boring subject) of mathematics (to some, extremely boring) and the lives of great mathematicians....Bravo! As an engineer/developer with a reasonable math background I really enjoyed reading about guys such as Laplace, Lagrange, Euler, Newton...I also found loads of useful facts for a maths website I am working on ...

More than a History of Mathematics

This is the one of the best references in Mathematics History that I have found. Generaly, when we look for this kind of book we always found or a purely concept evolution text or a formal tratise. In this book I found these thinks together and, in addition, something that I never have seen before: archeological references! Lots of egyptian, roman, greek, phenician and other civilization vessels, papirus, tables, reproduced, described and explained. And not only classical mathematics! I found, for an exemple, references of pre-colombian mathematics on Central and South Americas. For me, it becomes the top reference in History of Mathematics.