History of Mathematics (AMS Chelsea Publishing) [Hardcover]

Florian Cajori (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 20, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0821821024 | ISBN-13: 978-0821821022 | Edition: 5 Revised

Originally issued in 1893, this popular Fifth Edition (1991) covers the period from antiquity to the close of World War I, with major emphasis on advanced mathematics and, in particular, the advanced mathematics of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In one concise volume this unique book presents an interesting and reliable account of mathematics history for those who cannot devote themselves to an intensive study. The book is a must for personal and departmental libraries alike. Cajori has mastered the art of incorporating an enormous amount of specific detail into a smooth-flowing narrative. The Index--for example--contains not just the 300 to 400 names one would expect to find, but over 1,600. And, for example, one will not only find John Pell, but will learn who he was and some specifics of what he did (and that the Pell equation was named erroneously after him). In addition, one will come across Anna J. Pell and learn of her work on biorthogonal systems; one will find not only H. Lebesgue but the not unimportant (even if not major) V.A. Lebesgue. Of the Bernoullis one will find not three or four but all eight. One will find R. Sturm as well as C. Sturm; M. Ricci as well as G. Ricci; V. Riccati as well as J.F. Riccati; Wolfgang Bolyai as well as J. Bolyai; the mathematician Martin Ohm as well as the physicist G.S. Ohm; M. Riesz as well as F. Riesz; H.G. Grassmann as well as H. Grassmann; H.P. Babbage who continued the work of his father C. Babbage; R. Fuchs as well as the more famous L. Fuchs; A. Quetelet as well as L.A.J. Quetelet; P.M. Hahn and Hans Hahn; E. Blaschke and W. Blaschke; J. Picard as well as the more famous C.E. Picard; B. Pascal (of course) and also Ernesto Pascal and Etienne Pascal; and the historically important V.J. Bouniakovski and W.A. Steklov, seldom mentioned at the time outside the Soviet literature.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This title belongs in every math library. --E-STREAMS

From the Publisher

A Station Favorable to the Pursuits of Science: ..., Albree, et al.

Reveals the rich collection of mathematical works located at West Point ... contains ... photographs of attractive and interesting title pages, frontispieces and other visual features ... provides an important source for a general audience, as well as for those looking for more scholarly information ... well-organised and written in a lucid style. It is a very good "guide" for any non-specialist interested in the topics included ... it will be useful as both a reference and a textbook.
-- European Mathematical Society Newsletter

Product Details

• Hardcover: 524 pages
• Publisher: American Mathematical Society; 5 Revised edition (October 20, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0821821024
• ISBN-13: 978-0821821022
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,053,288 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A History of Mathematics, July 1, 2010

By 

Sam Adams (Minnesota. USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: History of Mathematics (AMS Chelsea Publishing) (Hardcover)

The Encyclopædia Britannica entry on Florian Cajori says, in part:

Cajori, Florian
born Feb. 28, 1859, St. Aignan, Switz.
died Aug. 14, 1930, Berkeley, Calif., U.S

"Cajori emigrated to the United States in 1875 and taught at Tulane University in New Orleans (1885-88) and at Colorado College (1889-1918), where he also served as dean of the department of engineering (1903-18). In 1918 he became professor of the history of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley."

Reference: "Cajori, Florian." Encyclopædia Britannica from Encyclopædia Britannica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD.

The first edition of this History of Mathematics occurred in 1893. Subsequent editions were in 1919, 1980, 1985, and this 5th edition in 1991. Apart from stylistic changes and minor corrections, the main revisions in the 3rd and later editions are said by the editor to be concerned with the eight page chapter on Babylonian mathematics, which was rewritten for the 4th edition and partly rewritten for the 5th. A book of similar title by Cajori, A History of Elementary Mathematics, although based upon this book under review, is a different work.

This is a densely written book, and especially in its later chapters assumes a mathematical background consonant with the period in which it was originally published. This is not a textbook. It is a scholarly discussion on the history of its subject. The historical limit of Cajori's discussion, mentioned in the preface to the 3rd edition and operative still in the current edition, is "the close of World War I." His viewpoint is not that of a modern reader. He is writing during the first blooms of 20th century abstract mathematics. The 1st edition of Whitehead and Russell's Principia Mathematica, which he mentions, occurred over the course of the years 1910 to 1913. The 1st edition of Felix Hausdorff's Grundzüge der Mengenlehre, which he doesn't mention, occurred in 1914. Emmy Noether (1882-1935) didn't arrive at Göttingen until 1915. Bourbaki's first book wasn't published until 1939.

Although Cajori lived until 1930, in revising his book for the 2nd edition (later editions occurred after his death), he could not know where mathematics was going in its methods of abstraction or how educational reforms and popular culture would affect the intellectual background and concerns of future readers, and so he could not write his history to speak to the viewpoint and expectations of a reader in the 21st century. But if you enjoy this sort of thing, this book is worth your attention, regardless of how well you understand everything in it.

The editor of the 3rd edition remarks: "With so vast and complex a subject to set forth within so small a compass, the author of a one-volume history of Mathematics must decide what facts to select, what interrelations to point out, whom to name, how much to explain, and the like. There is no optimum, no one way of doing this. Every one-volume history of mathematics is therefore necessarily very different. Indeed, each of the few that exist are, as the reader can easily verify, strikingly different." (p. iii)

9 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Content may be good but Kindle version is useless, March 14, 2009

By 

P. Lieber "Urban Guerilla Librarian" (Los Angeles, California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A History of Mathematics (Kindle Edition)

This isn't a proper e-book. It obviously is just a raw OCR scan without any human 'cleaning up'. I feel I should be given a proper copy for my Kindle when it's appropriately formatted. Riddled with misspellings and 'junk'. Especially when dealing with mathematics formatting is key, otherwise the book is unreadable.

Because of this, I am unable to review the actual content of the book.