The Language of Mathematics
eBook - ePub

The Language of Mathematics

The Stories behind the Symbols

  1. 280 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

The Language of Mathematics

The Stories behind the Symbols

About this book

A marvelous compendium of mathematical symbols and their fascinating histories

Galileo famously wrote that the book of nature is written in mathematical language. The Language of Mathematics is a wide-ranging and beautifully illustrated collection of short, colorful histories of the most commonly used symbols in mathematics, providing readers with an engaging introduction to the origins, evolution, and conceptual meaning of each one.

In dozens of lively and informative entries, Raúl Rojas shows how today’s mathematics stands on the shoulders of giants, mathematicians from around the world who developed mathematical notation through centuries of collective effort. He tells the stories of such figures as al-Khw?rizm?, René Descartes, Joseph-Louis Lagrange, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Augustin-Louis Cauchy, Karl Weierstrass, Sofia Kovalevskaya, David Hilbert, and Kenneth Iverson. Topics range from numbers and variables to sets and functions, constants, and combinatorics. Rojas describes the mathematical problems associated with different symbols and reveals how mathematical notation has sometimes been an accidental process. The entries are self-contained and can be read in any order, each one examining one or two symbols, their history, and the variants they may have had over time.

An essential companion for math enthusiasts, The Language of Mathematics shows how mathematics is a living and evolving entity, forever searching for the best symbolism to express relationships between abstract concepts and to convey meaning.

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Yes, you can access The Language of Mathematics by Raúl Rojas, Eduardo Aparicio in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Mathematics & History & Philosophy of Mathematics. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Contents
  5. Acknowledgments
  6. Symbols and Expressions
  7. Introduction
  8. I. The Long History of Mathematical Symbols
  9. II. Numbers and Variables
  10. III. Arithmetic Operators
  11. IV. Relational and Grouping Operators
  12. V. Calculus/Analysis
  13. VI. Sets and Functions
  14. VII. Constants
  15. VIII. Combinatorics
  16. IX. Various Topics
  17. Epilogue
  18. Bibliography
  19. Index