The Story of Mathematics: From Babylonian Numerals to Chaos Theory | 
| Author: Ian Stewart
Publisher: Quercus
Category: Book
List Price: $12.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 366129
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.5
Dimensions (in): 10.6 x 7.4 x 1.2
ISBN: 1847240178
Dewey Decimal Number: 530
EAN: 9781847240170
Publication Date: October 15, 2008
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Amazon.com Review
"The evolution of science, philosophy, and mathematics, all related, is far more important to the history of humanity than a parade of rulers and a procession of wars." Strong words, but Richard Mankiewicz comes mighty close to backing them up in his fascinating book, The Story of Mathematics. Divided into brief chapters, the book traces the development of mathematics from a baboon's fibula with 29 clearly visible notches (from Swaziland, circa 35,000 B.C.) to the Babylonian sexagesimal--or base 60--number system, which survives to this day in our method of timekeeping, to Euclid's Elements, described as "the most important textbook of all time," to fractals and other Mandelbrot sets. Along the way, Mankiewicz pays tribute to the men and women at the forefront of mathematics, though he's not afraid to dispel some myths: the Pythagorean theorem was widely known in antiquity before Pythagoras was even born, and a 14th-century Chinese manuscript clearly depicts what is now known as "Pascal's Triangle," a good three centuries before Pascal was born. Most entertaining are the chapters on practical applications of mathematics: astronomy, codemaking and -breaking, military strategy, modern art, and navigation. At times, it is difficult to follow the actual complex mathematics, but the vast majority of the book is readily accessible to the general reader. Filled with beautiful illustrations taken from ancient papyri, medieval manuscripts, scientific instruments, Renaissance painting, and computer-generated art, The Story of Mathematics is a singularly handsome volume and a pleasure to read. --Sunny Delaney
Product Description
The mysterious tally sticks of prehistoric peoples and the terrestrial maps used for trade, exploration, and warfare; the perennial fascination with the motions of heavenly bodies and changed perspectives on the art and science of vision: all are testament to a mathematics at the heart of history. This visually stunning volume takes the reader on an illustrated tour of mathematics across cultures and civilizations, bringing to life a world of important ideas and-rarely supposed-great intrigue and charm. The development of mathematics can be seen in a wealth of images, from the richly illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages to the deeply unsettling art of Dali and Duchamp, from the austere beauty of Babylonian clay tablets to the delicate complexity of computer-generated pictures. These images, and many others, are lavishly reproduced to accompany a text that travels from the dawn of Chinese and Indian civilizations to the scientific and digital revolutions of our day. Including portraits of household names such as Kepler and Copernicus as well as lesser-known but equally compelling figures like Niels Henrik Abel and Leonhard Euler, The Story of Mathematics is a rich amalgam of history, biography, and popular science. Readers will come away understanding how and why mathematics evolved as it did--of how it entered and remained close to the center of every area of human activity. Explaining mathematical concepts without equations, Richard Mankiewicz enables us to appreciate this essential intellectual occupation without "doing the math."
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 A readable survey of mathematics that is popular in style without sacrificing the inclusion of formulas November 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Light mathematical history is the best phrase to describe this book; it has too much math to be considered as mere history and not enough to be described as mathematics. It begins with the earliest of representations of mathematics, which was of course numbers. After that came the geometry of area representations for land surveying and the beginning of abstraction, where the idea became the mathematical concept traded rather than physical objects.
Most of the general ideas of mathematics developed since antiquity is at least mentioned, and Stewart is to be commended for including formulas when needed. His style of exposition is effective in presenting complex ideas in a manner that makes it very readable. Any reader with knowledge at the level of high school algebra will be able to understand the fundamentals of the concept even if the particular details are beyond their grasp.
This book could also serve as a text for a college level history of mathematics class for the elementary or middle school education major. If used as a source of ideas for classroom presentation, it could also be used as a text in a history of mathematics class for the math major.
 A Balanced and Well-Told Story March 3, 2008
Mankiewicz has given his readers exactly what the title promises -- The *Story* of Mathematics. As such the book doesn't bog itself down with illustrating the very mathematics it talks about. This might seem like a major absence for a book about mathematics, and maybe it is, but I get the feeling that the book assumes that the reader doesn't need or want a refresher. I appreciate the approach taken by Mankiewicz because it successfully keeps the story moving forward...as all good stories are inclined to do.
More commendable is that Mankiewicz's book gives the most historically balanced view of the early origins of mathematics that I've yet encountered. I am, of course, referring to the controversy that still surrounds Egypt's influence in the subject. I've read an entire spectrum of biased claims. Some of them over-crediting Egypt's contributions, but most of them under-crediting her legacy. Mankiewicz's view that "Our knowledge of Egyptian mathematics is necessarily limited by a genuine lack of artefacts" resonates as both sincere and true. He goes on to write that "It is therefore tempting to see the mathematics of the Egyptians as a step backward from the level reached by the Babylonians. But this probably unwarranted, especially given their precision in pyramid-building and their management of such a vast empire....the ancient Greeks widely acknowledged that their mathematics, especially their geometry, originated in Egypt." Those words seem to avoid the usual sensationalizing that I've encountered in other works on the topic.
This balanced reportage precipitates throughout the rest of the book, giving due space to all the key players, regardless of their geographic origins, in the story of numbers. The writing style is very accessible and, thankfully, with personality. Hopefully, this book is a hallmark of more to come. I think the world deserves a proper and balanced view of mathematics.
 High on illustrations, low on math... and very small print May 23, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
As another of the reviewers remarked, this book was obviously originally designed to be a "coffee-table" book on math for casual browsing... lots of beautiful illustrations (ranging from Michaelangelo pictures employing the use of perspective, right through to computer-generated fractal patterns), a chatty but superficial perusal through the history of mathematics, and very little in the way of actual mathematics content.
Unfortunately it seems the publisher slashed the printing budget for this book, and instead of being published in its originally designed "coffee-table book" dimensions, the book has been reduced in physical size with the result that the text is pretty small, and the print on the pages looks very cramped.
Informative, but not terribly interesting July 13, 2004
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I read this book because math is one of my favorite subjects and it seemed to be full of inforamtion. And it was full of information which stretched from discussing math in Pythagoras's times all the way up to modern chaos theory, but as I read it I just didn't find that it captured my attention as I had hoped. As I read through this novel I felt that only a small portion of what I was reading was really going to stay with me. I often felt my mind wandering as I just didn't find myself completely interested and sometimes I had to remind myself to pay attention. I would have liked a little bit more discussion on the importance and applications of the mathematics that was being developed. There wasn't as much depth as I yearned for, but perhaps this can be forgiven to some extent considering how much the author was attempting to discuss. Despite all of the aforementioned, I'm still giving this book 3 stars(although I'd prefer to give it 2.5 if I could). It was a very easy read and certainly didn't get particularly complicated. Plus, there were some pretty nice illustrations. Overall, I'd say that although I don't regret having read the book, I probably wouldn't read it again.
 Good text, terrible production January 26, 2003
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
As far as the text goes, this is a pretty nice book. But the publishers have done the author a disservice in how they produced the book (maybe over-produced is a better term). It looks to me as if the book was intended to be a coffee-table sized book, then, when that turned out to be too expensive, the size was reduced. So we get tiny print, small pictures, and an over-dense page layout. Plus, there's one of the most irritating typos I've ever seen: the splash page for chapter three says it is about the Pythagorean "theorum"!!The actual content is competently done, for the most part reflecting what is in the standard references and not taking any big interpretive risks. There is more coverage of recent mathematics than is common on books aimed at the "general reader." The bibliography is much too short, but it points to other books that do have more extensive references. There are better short histories of mathematics, but this one won't lead you astray... provided your eyes are good and small sans-serif type doesn't bother you!
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