Mathematics: An Illustrated History of Numbers (Ponderables) Hardcover – October 9, 2012

This history gives a summary of events in math that the editors think will be of particular interest to the young, or to older folk who want to see the fun and frivolous side to math that engages us all with its curious puzzles and problems. It is a strange and joyous game that we see opened up before us in this book. I think that, while not neglecting the serious sides and the dominantly dry, abstract, passionless, intellectual academic discipline that mathematics has evolved into through the major shifts in technology, science and mathematical thinking itself over the past several centuries, the editors have tried to steer a course that focuses on the fun stuff of math, and how curiosity leads us in myriad ways in math to fascinating patterns, problems, puzzles and ideas. As an applied mathematician, I am mainly not interested in math for its fun stuff, but for what it can help us with in terms of framing descriptions, making predictions and understanding the world. I do not have a lot of interest in the side of the history of math this book explores, and I admit that I am not favorably inclined toward the math world of games and fun. On the other hand, apart from a few typos which were a bit annoying (for example, graphs have edges and vertices, and in describing the Konigsberg bridge problem, item 43, the editors chose to describe the bridges, at one point as vertices. While to a certain extent, the notions of edges vs vertices are dual, and this is not strictly wrong, I do think the overall bridge puzzle is better understood when we think of the bridges as edges), the level of the book is scholarly, avoids the "academic" viewpoint, is very well written for a popular audience (especially pre-college level), and is fairly well organized. Each editor has done his or her "homework" quite nicely, and presents informative, sometimes extremely eye-opening material (even for an old jaded mathematician like myself). I think this is a really good book for someone not that specialized or deep into math as an undergrad math major or professor, who would like to gain a little insight into math, without hitting its dry, boring bits, which is not always avoidable. Math is a huge, extremely deep, complex, useful, often beautiful field that encompasses vast areas of pure art and numerous important applications. The editors picked out a sampling of some of this, which while presenting a really skewed picture of modern math, presents a very appealing portrait of the amateur and "spectator" side of the field. On the other hand, when the authors do discuss the luminaries, they mention many of the important names, like Newton, Gauss, Riemann, Hilbert or von Neumann, that really must be named, even if the account focuses on "non-academic" sides of math. Because my background in math and physics is pretty good, I did not have a difficult time understanding much of the book, and I thought the ideas were communicated fairly well, even for people who are not experts. Math as a "fun" game is, after all, the view that many of the really top, top people in math have. If you want an appreciation of the basic attractiveness of mathematics, this is a very good book to read.

"Mathematics: An Illustrated History of Numbers (100 Ponderables) is an excellent popularization book on Math. Each of 100 ideas included from the very basic integers, how did we begin counting to chaos, to many of the marvelous theorems and variety of types and kinds of numbers is well, briefly and mostly nontechy explained in one or two page essays and diagrams. There are wonderful illustrations of people, things, machines, graphs, and concepts.The section at the end with brief biographies of many famous mathematicians is fascinating and makes clear why they are famous.This an excellent gift from the math lover of any age in your family. It will introduce the high school student in your family to the wonders and fascinating challenges of math over the centuries. It will explain many of the occasional news stories from the world of mathematics that occasionally break through. It will even help many with math phobia to overcome their fears of math.Of the several popularizations of math I have read over my years, this is one of the best. It is an excellent buy and addition to my library.

We do not often buy coffee table style books as I find them a little large to leaf through, but this book is beautiful and was totally worth it. My 12 year old is passionate about math, and this book will be fun for him to go through. My favorite feature of it, which was a wonderful surprise, is a folded up "world history timeline" in the back of the book that you can pull out to see what was happening concurrently in the world with different mathematical discoveries. It is delightful!

Excelente libro. Una muy buena sintesis para enseñar y consultar. Es ameno y fácil de leer

This book is a great introduction to numerous areas of Mathematics and the history of Mathematics. I would recommend it for teachers, especially homeschoolers, beginning in elementary school through high school to supplement regular Math curriculum and explore more areas of Mathematics.I have also purchased a copy for my daughter who is homeschooling.

Building up a motivational library for my daughter. Enjoyed the books so much, I bought the entire series after initial purchase of The Elements. Perfectly illustrated and short enough for those with developing attention spans. Subjective further study may be called for at a later stage, but this is a great way to foster the will to do so.... Love it, sincerely...

Where was this book when I was a kid? The beautiful illustations and succinct, smart articles about mathematical developments in their historical context is brilliant. I so very much enjoy the interesting historical details that really help one to understand the significance of mathematical thought developments over time. Highly recommend.

Beautiful book with tons of information. Our oldest son (10) loves all the illustrations and keeps his interest for hours, but is advanced enough for adult readers to get a lot out of. Book is of excellent quality and would highly recommend.

It's got pretty much the same type of info as another book on mathematics that I have. It's okay.

Good read

Pictures and explanations very detailed my 10 year old loves it, so do I! Fast shipping

What a great book on the history of mathematics. All the major developments are included and suitable as a knowledge store as well as for just browsing. Text and graphics are well presented and the larger size makes it easier to read. I bought a copy as a present, but was so impressed I bought another for myself.

A very interesting book. I strongly recommend it to anybody that is interested in mathematics.