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Title: A History of Mathematics by Carl B. Boyer, Isaac Asimov ISBN: 0-471-54397-7 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 06 March, 1991 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (8 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Not for the serious student of history of mathematics
Comment: Boyer can write pretty well. His tendency to wax on about the virtues of the people he writes about can get annoying, but overall this probably works to make a more engaging style. This kind of writing style is entirely appropriate for a textbook designed to draw readers into the world of mathematics, but is prone to wide, sweeping generalizations and ill-supported assumptions and occasionally, factually incorrect statements.
The reader who is serious about studying the development of mathematics will learn something from this book, but there are better places to learn it. Boyer, as indicated above, seems intent on "cleaning up" history to fit the nice picture he has of it. Unfortunately, merely reciting well-known mathematical legends does more harm than good; it obscures the real process of discovery, and the way mathematics has, and still does, develop.
There are errors in the book that indicate Boyer did not do his research. To keep this review short, I'll name one: Boyer credits Poincare with the Poincare disc model of hyperbolic geometry. Anyone that has actually looked at Riemann's very important 1854 lecture (one of the most important documents of 19th century mathematics) will realize this model is due to Riemann! Since Boyer spends quite a bit of time on Riemann, this is rather puzzling.
Boyer also relies on E.T. Bell for some biographical information. No serious historian of mathematics would (or should) reference Bell for biographies of mathematicians. Bell's caricatures are entertaining, but do a disservice to the subject.
This book is only recommended for those who want to get a vague idea of the history of mathematics, but do not particularly care about the details being correct. For that purpose, Boyer does a better job than most.
Rating: 5
Summary: The best book on history of mathematics
Comment: I first bought the firt edition about 25 years ago when I was still a matriculation student preparing the examination to university. This book has been with me for more than one fourth of a decade. I also own the second edition of the same book.
It is a pity that the new author did not take the opportunity to expand the book to a much wider scale. ( what I mean is not to a encycoplaedic but at least expand the history of mathematics in the 20 the century. Now back to the book. What makes this book different other ones, I think it is the historical intuition of Boyer makes this book eternal. Some book arrange the content chronologically and somes book arrange the content according to the topics. However, Boyer cleverly combined that two . Also, he also extinctly discuss the topics proportional to their importance in the history. There is not too much mathematics and
there is not too few mathematics, Just a few words to describe that is " that book is really well balanced " and gives you everything and also the range of audience is wide, coupled with the very very reasonable price, it is the book on mathematical history who are interested should own one.
Rating: 5
Summary: This book tells you everything
Comment: I learned so much from this book. It's like 5 textbooks wrapped into one!
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Title: A Concise History of Mathematics by Dirk J. Struik ISBN: 0486602559 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 01 August, 1987 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
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Title: What Is Mathematics?: An Elementary Approach to Ideas and Methods by Richard Courant, Herbert Robbins, Ian Stewart ISBN: 0195105192 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: May, 1996 List Price(USD): $21.50 |
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Title: The History of the Calculus and Its Conceptual Development by Carl B. Boyer ISBN: 0486605094 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 01 June, 1959 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Foundations and Fundamental Concepts of Mathematics by Howard Eves ISBN: 048669609X Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 20 May, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Elementary Number Theory and Its Applications (4th Edition) by Kenneth H. Rosen ISBN: 0201870738 Publisher: Pearson Addison Wesley Pub. Date: 06 January, 2000 List Price(USD): $112.00 |
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