Jackson Tom. Mathematics: An Illustrated History of Numbers

Shelter Harbor Press and Worth Press Ltd, 2012. — 168 p. — (Ponderables 100 Breakthroughs That Changed History Who Did What When). — ISBN 9780985323042.Legend has it that the first magic square, where all lines and diagonals add up to the same figure, was revealed more than 2,000 years ago when a river turtle appeared to have ancient Chinese numerals inscribed on sections of its shell. Patterns are everywhere in nature, and counting, measuring, and calculating changes are as old as civilization itself, as are many of the theorems and laws of math. The Pythagorean Theorem was used to plot out fields for planting crops before the ancient Greek Pythagoras was even born, but the story begins long before that, with tally marks on rock and bone surviving from the Stone Age. Here is the essential guide to mathematics, an authoritative reference book and timeline that explores the work of history s greatest mathematicians. From the teasing genius of Pierre de Fermat, who said he knew the answers but rarely gave them up, to the fractal pattern discovered by Waclaw Sierpinski now used to plan the route a mailman takes, here are 100 landmark moments in this intensely rigorous discipline, seen through the eyes of the people who lived them. Glimpse the abstract landscape of infinite numbers and multi-dimensional shapes as you learn about the most famous math men of all. Pythagoras had a love of numbers so strong it led to a violent death. Then there is Fibonacci, whose guide for bookkeepers changed the way we add and Descartes, who took inspiration from a fly to convert numbers into shapes and back again, changing math forever. Over many centuries, great minds puzzled over the evidence and, step-by-step, edged ever closer to the truth. Behind every one of these breakthrough moments there s a story about a confounding puzzle that became a discovery and changed the way we see the world. Here are one hundred of the most significant and we call these Ponderables. In Mathematics: An Illustrated History of Numbers, you ll get a peak into the Imponderables, too, the mysteries yet to be solved that will one day lead great thinkers forward to an even greater understanding of the universe. Includes a removable fold-out concertina neatly housed in the back of the book. This fold-out provides a 12-page Timeline History of Mathematics that embeds the story in historical context and shows Who Did What When at a glance. The reverse side features some of the greatest mathematical enigmas and interesting facts about the world of numbersPrehistory to the Middle Ages
Learning to Count
Positional Notation
The Abacus
Pythagoras Theorem
The Rhind Papyrus
Zero
The Math of Music
The Golden Ratio
Platonic Solids
Logic
Geometry
Magic Squares
Prime Numbers
Pi
Measuring the Earth
The Powers of Ten
The Modern Calendar
Diophantine Equations
Hindu-Arabic Number System
Algorithms
Cryptography
Algebra
Fibonacci Sequence
The Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment
Perspective Geometry
Non-Linear Equations
Pendulum Law
x and y
Ellipses
Logarithms
Napier's Bones
Slide Rule
Complex Numbers
Cartesian Coordinates
Laws of Fall
Calculators
Pascal's Triangle
Chance
Principle of Induction
Calculus
Math of Gravity
Binary Numbers
New Numbers, New Theories
e
Graph Theory
Three-Body Problem
Euler's Identity
Bayes' Theorem
Maskelyne and the Personal Equation
Malthusianism
Fundamental Theorem of Algebra
Perturbation Theory
Central Limit Theorem
Fourier Analysis
The Mechanical Computer
Bessel Function
Group Theory
Non-Euclidean Geometry
The Average Person
The Poisson Distribution
Quaternions
Transcendental Numbers
Finding Neptune
Fechner-Weber Law
Boolean Algebra
Maxwell-Boltzmann
Defining Irrationals
Infinity
Set Theory
Peano Axioms
Simple Lie Groups
Statistical Techniques
Modern Mathematics
Topology
A New Geometry
Hilbert's Problems
Mass Energy
Markov Chains
Population Genetics
Foundations of Mathematics
General Relativity
The Mathematics of Quantum Physics
Gbdel's Theorem
Turing Machine
Fields Medals
Zuse and the Electronic Computer
Game Theory
Information Theory
Geodesics
Chaos Theory
String Theory
Catastrophe Theory
Four-Color Theorem
Public Key Encryption
Fractals
The Fourth Dimension and Beyond
Classification of all Simple Finite Groups
Self-Organized Criticality
Fermat's Last Theorem
Proof by Computer
Millennium Problems
Poincare Conjecture
The Search for Mersenne Primes
Mathematics: a guide
Imponderables
The Great Mathematicians
Bibliography and Other ResourcesAcknowledgements