Jacqueline Stedall

In this Very Short Introduction, Jacqueline Stedall explores the rich historical and cultural diversity of mathematical endeavour from the distant past to the present day, using illustrative case studies drawn from a range of times and places; including early imperial China, the medieval Islamic world, and nineteenth-century Britain.

The History of Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction

Noel Malcolm

John Pell

Charles Cavendish

The Mental World of an Early Modern Mathematician

John Pell (1611-1685) and His Correspondence with Sir Charles Cavendish

Mathematics is a fundamental human activity that can be practised and understood in a multitude of ways; indeed, mathematical ideas themselves are far from being fixed, but are adapted and changed by their passage across periods and cultures. In this Very Short Introduction, Jacqueline Stedall explores the rich historical and cultural diversity of mathematical endeavour from the distant past to the present day. Arranged thematically, to exemplify the varied contexts in which people have learned, used, and handed on mathematics, she also includes illustrative case studies drawn from a range of times and places, including early imperial China, the medieval Islamic world, and nineteenth-century Britain. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Aimed at students and researchers in Mathematics, History of Mathematics and Science, this book examines the development of mathematics from the late 16th Century to the end of the 19th Century. Mathematics has an amazingly long and rich history, it has been practised in every society and culture, with written records reaching back in some cases as far as four thousand years. This book will focus on just a small part of the story, in a sense the most recent chapter of it: the mathematics of western Europe from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Each chapter will focus on a particular topic and outline its history with the provision of facsimiles of primary source material along with explanatory notes and modern interpretations. Almost every source is given in its original form, not just in the language in which it was first written, but as far as practicable in the layout and typeface in which it was read by contemporaries.This book is designed to provide mathematics undergraduates with some historical background to the material that is now taught universally to students in their final years at school and the first years at college or university: the core subjects of calculus, analysis, and abstract algebra, along with others such as mechanics, probability, and number theory. All of these evolved into their present form in a relatively limited area of western Europe from the mid sixteenth century onwards, and it is there that we find the major writings that relate in a recognizable way to contemporary mathematics.

Jacqueline Stedall

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