History & Philosophy

Bayes's theorem is a tool for assessing how probable evidence makes some hypothesis. The papers in this volume consider the worth and applicability of the theorem. Richard Swinburne sets out the philosophical issues. Elliott Sober argues that there are...

We may remember their equations and discoveries from school, but do we remember who the men behind the maths were? From the theories of Pythagoras (did you know he ran a secret brotherhood that studied maths, music and gymnastics?) to coining the term...

Prior to the advent of computers, no mathematician, physicist or engineer could do without a volume of tables of logarithmic and trigonometric functions. These tables made possible certain calculations which would otherwise be impossible. Unfortunately,...

Leibniz published the Dissertation on Combinatorial Art in 1666. This book contains the seeds of Leibniz's mature thought, as well as many of the mathematical ideas that he would go on to further develop after the invention of the calculus. It is in the...

This book provides an accessible, critical introduction to the three main approaches that dominated work in the philosophy of mathematics during the twentieth century: logicism, intuitionism and formalism.About the Author Alexander George is Associate...

A few years ago, in the Wren Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, I came across a remarkable but then little-known album of pencil and watercolour portraits. The artist of most (perhaps all) was Thomas Charles Wageman. Created during 1829-1852, these...

This book is an extended history of mathematics that places mathematical development firmly in its historical context. Each section begins with a description of the geography and history of the country considered. From there, lively retelling of the...

From the pyramids and the Parthenon to the Sydney Opera House and the Bilbao Guggenheim, this book takes readers on an eye-opening tour of the mathematics behind some of the world's most spectacular buildings. Beautifully illustrated, the book explores...

The Moscow Mathematical Olympiad has been challenging high-school students with stimulating, original problems of different degrees of difficulty for over 75 years. The problems are nonstandard; solving them takes wit, thinking outside the box, and,...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780486490618Author Wilder WilderFormat PaperbackPage Count 240Imprint Dover Publications Inc.Publisher Dover Publications Inc.Weight(grams)...

How a simple equation reshaped mathematicsLeonhard Euler's polyhedron formula describes the structure of many objects-from soccer balls and gemstones to Buckminster Fuller's buildings and giant all-carbon molecules. Yet Euler's theorem is so simple it...

The world around us is saturated with numbers. They are a fundamental pillar of our modern society, and accepted and used with hardly a second thought. But how did this state of affairs come to be? In this book, Leo Corry tells the story behind the idea...

This study looks to the work of Tarski's mentors Stanislaw Lesniewski and Tadeusz Kotarbinski, and reconsiders all of the major issues in Tarski scholarship in light of the conception of Intuitionistic Formalism developed: semantics, truth, paradox,...

The Equation of Knowledge: From Bayes' Rule to a Unified Philosophy of Science introduces readers to the Bayesian approach to science: teasing out the link between probability and knowledge. The author strives to make this book accessible to a very broad...

What is the best way to photograph a speeding bullet? Why does light move through glass in the least amount of time possible? How can lost hikers find their way out of a forest? What will rainbows look like in the future? Why do soap bubbles have a shape...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780375727726Author Dan RockmoreFormat PaperbackPage Count 304Imprint Vintage BooksPublisher Random House USA IncWeight(grams) 267gDimensions(mm) 202mm *...

The history of mathematics is filled with major breakthroughs resulting from solutions to recreational problems. Problems of interest to gamblers led to the modern theory of probability, for example, and surreal numbers were inspired by the game of Go...

The famous and prolific nineteenth-century mathematician, engineer and inventor Charles Babbage (1791-1871) was an early pioneer of computing. He planned several calculating machines, but none was built in his lifetime. On his death his youngest son,...

Mathematics plays a central role in much of contemporary science, but philosophers have struggled to understand what this role is or how significant it might be for mathematics and science. In this book Christopher Pincock tackles this perennial question...

Many first year undergraduate chemistry students are daunted by the mathematical content of their courses. Mathematics in chemistry often presents an obstacle, preventing the student from grasping the chemical concepts and real ideas that lie behind the...

A mathematician's ten-year quest to tell Fibonacci's storyIn 2000, Keith Devlin set out to research the life and legacy of the medieval mathematician Leonardo of Pisa, popularly known as Fibonacci, whose book Liber abbaci, or the "Book of Calculation,"...

This book is a history of the development of mathematical astronomy in China, from the late third century BCE, to the early 3rd century CE - a period often referred to as 'early imperial China'. It narrates the changes in ways of understanding the...

This text explores the many transformations that the mathematical proof has undergone from its inception to its versatile, present-day use, considering the advent of high-speed computing machines. Though there are many truths to be discovered in this...

Experience mathematics--and develop problem-solving skills that will benefit you throughout your life--with THE NATURE OF MATHEMATICS and its accompanying online learning tools. Karl Smith introduces you to proven problem-solving techniques and shows you...

In 1644 the Qing dynasty seized power in China. Its Manchu elite were at first seen by most of their subjects as foreigners from beyond the Great Wall, and the consolidation of Qing rule presented significant cultural and political problems, as well as...

The genesis of the digital idea and why it transformed civilizationA few short decades ago, we were informed by the smooth signals of analog television and radio; we communicated using our analog telephones; and we even computed with analog computers...

The genesis of the digital idea and why it transformed civilizationA few short decades ago, we were informed by the smooth signals of analog television and radio; we communicated using our analog telephones; and we even computed with analog computers...

Sophus Lie (1842-1899) is without doubt one of Norway's greatest scientific talents. His mathematical works have made him famous around the world no less than Niels Henrik Abel. The terms Lie groups and Lie algebra are today part of the standard...

While all of us regularly use basic math symbols such as those for plus, minus, and equals, few of us know that many of these symbols weren't available before the sixteenth century. What did mathematicians rely on for their work before then? And how did...

Contrary to popular belief--and despite the expulsion, emigration, or death of many German mathematicians--substantial mathematics was produced in Germany during 1933-1945. In this landmark social history of the mathematics community in Nazi Germany,...

This book tells the story of the Riemann hypothesis for function fields (or curves) starting with Artin's 1921 thesis, covering Hasse's work in the 1930s on elliptic fields and more, and concluding with Weil's final proof in 1948. The main sources are...

This book picks up the history of mathematics from where Sherlock Holmes in Babylon left it. The forty articles of Who Gave You the Epsilon? continue the story of the development of mathematics into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The articles...

History is not what we were wearing, It is how we had been utterly ruined. B.Pasternak."Spektorsky" In the spring of 1999 the police found me lying unconscious with a broken forehead next to my bike in the outskirts of Paris, and delivered me to a...

With a few notable exceptions, pure mathematics in Britain at the beginning of the nineteenth century was mainly a recreation for amateurs. Drawing on primary sources, John Heard provides an engaging account of the process by which it rose to become an...

Based on extensive research in Sanskrit sources, Mathematics in India chronicles the development of mathematical techniques and texts in South Asia from antiquity to the early modern period. Kim Plofker reexamines the few facts about Indian mathematics...

In recent decades it has become obvious that mathematics has always been a worldwide activity. But this is the first book to provide a substantial collection of English translations of key mathematical texts from the five most important ancient and...

Mathematics in Ancient Egypt traces the development of Egyptian mathematics, from the end of the fourth millennium BC--and the earliest hints of writing and number notation--to the end of the pharaonic period in Greco-Roman times. Drawing from...

This book explores and articulates the concepts of the continuous and the infinitesimal from two points of view: the philosophical and the mathematical. The first section covers the history of these ideas in philosophy. Chapter one, entitled 'The...

This monograph considers several well-known mathematical theorems and asks the question, "Why prove it again?" while examining alternative proofs. It explores the different rationales mathematicians may have for pursuing and presenting new...

Throughout history, application rather than abstraction has been the prominent driving force in mathematics. From the compass and sextant to partial differential equations, mathematical advances were spurred by the desire for better navigation tools,...