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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Most Interesting Piece of History, October 20, 2006
This review is from: The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time (Hardcover)
I loved this book! The author has recounted a fascinating tale about the war that ultimately ensued between Newton and Leibniz as to which one of the two was the first to discover calculus. The author complements his captivating account with highlights of the personal lives of these two individuals, as well as the pertinent politics and daily life in seventeenth and early eighteenth century Europe. The writing style is simple, friendly and quite engaging.
At first, I hesitated to buy this book, despite my love for the subject matter, because of the less than positive early reviews that it was getting. These reviews seemed to dwell mainly on the book's poor editing. Later reviews seemed more forgiving in that regard and, thus, generally more positive. So, I bought the book, read it and absolutely loved it. I do agree that the many editorial errors, although they don't occur on every page, can be rather annoying and even downright confusing at times. Such errors include word repetitions, misprints, wrong verb tenses, occasional missing words, wrong word order, bad punctuation, etc. It is for that reason alone, i.e., poor editing, that I gave it merely four stars because as far as the subject matter, the writing style and the intense interest that this book generates, it is very easily five-star material. This book should be of particular interest to math, science and history buffs alike.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Well-Told, If Narrow, Tale, September 24, 2006
This review is from: The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time (Hardcover)
As Mr. Bardi points out in his book The Calculus Wars, most modern historians of science agree that Sir Isaac Newton (the great English scientist) and Gottfried Leibniz (the great German philosopher) each discovered the calculus independently. It is also generally accepted that, though Newton discovered the calculus many years before Leibniz, Leibniz published first and continued to work on the development of the subject long after Newton had moved on to other pursuits. And therein lies a tale.
The battle between Newton and Leibniz over the "credit" for discovering calculus is one of the great intellectual priority fights in the history of science. It is fascinating for many reasons but first among these must be for the insights it provides into the personalities of two mathematical geniuses: Newton's hypersensitive and introverted nature versus Leibniz's unflinching pursuit of truth as he perceived it in the face of all obstacles. Place on top of this the fact that this fight wasn't picked until they were both in the twilight of their careers, the fact that distance and slow communication made determining what's what more difficult and the fact that, in many ways, this was a reflection of England versus the Continent and you have a war well-joined indeed.
As a physicist and teacher, I was well aware of this conflict but Mr. Bardi has done a very good job of bringing out its details. The only thing I would caution readers of is that Mr. Bardi generally stays very close to his topic. What I mean is that he only provides biographical details that are germane to his story. Being very familiar with these two characters from other reading, I was clear on most of the situations he describes. Those less familiar with the people involved may have more trouble. Still, if Newton and Leibniz are personalities that interest you, this is a lively telling of a pivotal and often lost part of their lives.
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24 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting story, but doesn't merit a full book, June 23, 2006
This review is from: The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time (Hardcover)
While the story of the invention of calculus is an interesting one, it would be better suited for a long, New Yorker-style article, rather than a full book. Bardi fills out the narrative with interesting, but irrelevent material, such as other projects that Newton and Leibniz developed and studied. While Bardi does a good job of capturing the personalities of Newton and Leibniz, his attempt to fill out the book with historical background information and tangential stories ultimately makes "the calculus war" itself a backburner element. If you're solely interested in the calculus side of the story, this is the wrong book for you. If you're interested in a more holistic study of Newton and Leibniz, this is a good start.
Bardi is successful, however, at reproducing the era. His chronological narrative gives good insight to the way science and scientific societies progressed in the late 17th century. His details about the circulation of letters and correpsondence written by Leibniz and Newton provide solid information about how information traveled in those days. The side stories about Leibniz' time-sapping historical projects (which he did for money) and Newton's boredom with his duties as the head of the British Mint, also demonstrate the difficult lives that even major scientists and thinkers led back in those days.
While the book's writing style is amateurish at times (Bardi likes to use exclamation points and intermittent first-person commentary and opinion, which read like office emails, rather than historical analysis), Bardi does a good job at distilling the information into a text lay-people can understand.
This book was published by a small press and accordingly has numerous typos and some grammatical errors, which were annoying, even if expected.
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