» A History of Mathematics

A History of Mathematics Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: Usefulness
Comment: Excellent organization and coverage. Type size limits effectiveness for practical reference on a routine basis. Subject matter being oriented toward those accustomed to frequent reference should serve as guide.

---

Customer Rating:
Summary: A great introduction to the history of math
Comment: When I was a high school student, I loved math, but hated math classes, with their tedious emphasis on going over things until even the most mathematically ungifted either got the stuff (or gave up!) the repetitive teaching necessary to inculcate it into the densest heads, and the problem solving that went on long after I had "got it."

Would that I'd then had this book. Boyer has written a great introductory work to both the history of math and math itself, which you can read at your own pace, study until you get it and then move on, with lots of references if you for some reason want to understand something even better. By grouping the chapters around eras of mathematicians, and various mathematicians, he makes the history of math approachable even to those without degrees in mathematics.

This is not necessarily THE book you'd want to read if you're working on a masters or PhD in math, but the sort of book you'd really love to read as a bright high school student or undergraduate student. All in all a great book, but, as other reviewers have written, not exactly the Encyclopaedia Britanica, but then, how many people read the Britanica for pleasure?

---

Customer Rating:
Summary: Everyone should read this book
Comment: Hey I read this book loved it, and everyone should read it! Hey I am no brain, I do not belong to Mensa, nor am I endowed with any superior intelect, I am an average guy, Just a B student, who fell in love with this book. Anybody if they really want can understand this book and really appreciate what math is. Mathmatics before this book was just a bunch of numbers on a page any countless formulas to memorize, however this book changed me, I see math a whole different way now. Studying the history of mathmatics is like studying the history of the world. It is a shame this information is never taught in elementry school, it would make kids a lot more interested in math and actually be able to see what the numbers mean. After reading this book a door has been opened. I now am more curious about mathmatics and well everything! I understand where those numbers came from, Pie no longer is something I eat or some funy thing in a formula to find the area of a circle, it actually means something to now.

---

Customer Rating:
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.

---

Customer Rating:
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.

---

More Reviews for A History of Mathematics