Journey Through Genius
Quick Informations
Where to buy it: Wiley
Author: William Dunham
Release date: January 16, 1991
Language: English
Personal Progress: Read completely.
Review
Description
This book is the perfect introduction into the history and philosophy of mathematics. It really helps understanding how mathematics was thought and how it evolved into what we know today. Each chapter presents a mathematician and the history of one of its greatest discovery. Each chapter made me realize how influent each of the mentionned mathematicians are and how modern mathematics is built on top of their work. It is thanks to this book that I finally understand why Archimedes really is one of the giants in mathematics and why he deserves to have his face on the Fields Medals.
Prerequisites
The only prerequisite would be some basic calculus for the second half of the book, everything else is self-contained and well-explained.
Content
The book is split into 12 chapters, the first half of the book is focused on Greek mathematics and the second half on calculus (and set theory). Most of the mathematics presented in the first part is geometry. Chapters 2 and 3 study in details first books of Euclid's Elements. Chapter 4 explains how Archimedes pointed out that the number pi shows up everywhere and chapter 5 presents a really clever and intriguing proof discovered by Heron. Chapters 7 through 10 are focused on Newton, the Bernoullis and Euler and chapters 11 and 12 presents the work of Georg Cantor and its theory of sets.
Further Readings
For the moment, I would say that the best book to read after this one is The Calculus Gallery by the same author. It has a very similar structure but it focus mainly on the history of Calculus and Analysis. It goes way deeper into this subject than Journey Through Genius.