Customer Reviews

The Story of Mathematics

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As far as the text goes, this is a pretty nice book. But the publishers have done the author a disservice in how they produced the book (maybe over-produced is a better term). It looks to me as if the book was intended to be a coffee-table sized book, then, when that turned out to be too expensive, the size was reduced. So we get tiny print, small pictures, and an over-dense page layout. Plus, there's one of the most irritating typos I've ever seen: the splash page for chapter three says it is about the Pythagorean "theorum"!!

The actual content is competently done, for the most part reflecting what is in the standard references and not taking any big interpretive risks. There is more coverage of recent mathematics than is common on books aimed at the "general reader." The bibliography is much too short, but it points to other books that do have more extensive references. There are better short histories of mathematics, but this one won't lead you astray... provided your eyes are good and small sans-serif type doesn't bother you!

I was under the impression when I ordered this that it was an ordinary book you could read straight through. It's actually more of a general reference book of math history, organized in subtopics with really tiny, dense print written with little flair.

The book has an excellent layout and has clear descriptions and focus. I liked the references to other cultures and how they influenced the early development of mathematics, which is a refreshing change to the usual Western European slant that is portrayed in most modern mathematics textbooks.

This is a book for the lay person, and the author has gone to lengths to make sure there are no equations to look at. You may think this is a good thing, but consider that most of us learned mathematics from textbooks writing equations on paper. On several occasions, the author makes references to mathematical formula or theorem but does not illustrate their mathematical representation. As a person with a Master's degree in mathematics (admittedly its been about 6 years since I used it seriously :), I found myself scratching my head to remember some of the formulas the author mentions in the book and how they were applied.

So much intellectual output, so much practical significance, so diverse a spectrum of imagination -- this book is tough to put down.

The most provocative theme: there may be a world of mathematical genious lost forever to time, decay, and obscurity. So much of today's mathematics descends from manuscripts that were buried in dust for centuries, or thoughts that were expressed but not firmly grasped until much time had elapsed.

Perhaps a more thorough investigation of ancient/medieval math is warranted. Who knows what new ideas might emerge?

I read this book because math is one of my favorite subjects and it seemed to be full of inforamtion. And it was full of information which stretched from discussing math in Pythagoras's times all the way up to modern chaos theory, but as I read it I just didn't find that it captured my attention as I had hoped. As I read through this novel I felt that only a small portion of what I was reading was really going to stay with me. I often felt my mind wandering as I just didn't find myself completely interested and sometimes I had to remind myself to pay attention. I would have liked a little bit more discussion on the importance and applications of the mathematics that was being developed. There wasn't as much depth as I yearned for, but perhaps this can be forgiven to some extent considering how much the author was attempting to discuss.

Despite all of the aforementioned, I'm still giving this book 3 stars(although I'd prefer to give it 2.5 if I could). It was a very easy read and certainly didn't get particularly complicated. Plus, there were some pretty nice illustrations. Overall, I'd say that although I don't regret having read the book, I probably wouldn't read it again.

As another of the reviewers remarked, this book was obviously originally designed to be a "coffee-table" book on math for casual browsing... lots of beautiful illustrations (ranging from Michaelangelo pictures employing the use of perspective, right through to computer-generated fractal patterns), a chatty but superficial perusal through the history of mathematics, and very little in the way of actual mathematics content.

Unfortunately it seems the publisher slashed the printing budget for this book, and instead of being published in its originally designed "coffee-table book" dimensions, the book has been reduced in physical size with the result that the text is pretty small, and the print on the pages looks very cramped.

Mankiewicz has given his readers exactly what the title promises -- The *Story* of Mathematics. As such the book doesn't bog itself down with illustrating the very mathematics it talks about. This might seem like a major absence for a book about mathematics, and maybe it is, but I get the feeling that the book assumes that the reader doesn't need or want a refresher. I appreciate the approach taken by Mankiewicz because it successfully keeps the story moving forward...as all good stories are inclined to do.

More commendable is that Mankiewicz's book gives the most historically balanced view of the early origins of mathematics that I've yet encountered. I am, of course, referring to the controversy that still surrounds Egypt's influence in the subject. I've read an entire spectrum of biased claims. Some of them over-crediting Egypt's contributions, but most of them under-crediting her legacy. Mankiewicz's view that "Our knowledge of Egyptian mathematics is necessarily limited by a genuine lack of artefacts" resonates as both sincere and true. He goes on to write that "It is therefore tempting to see the mathematics of the Egyptians as a step backward from the level reached by the Babylonians. But this probably unwarranted, especially given their precision in pyramid-building and their management of such a vast empire....the ancient Greeks widely acknowledged that their mathematics, especially their geometry, originated in Egypt." Those words seem to avoid the usual sensationalizing that I've encountered in other works on the topic.

This balanced reportage precipitates throughout the rest of the book, giving due space to all the key players, regardless of their geographic origins, in the story of numbers. The writing style is very accessible and, thankfully, with personality. Hopefully, this book is a hallmark of more to come. I think the world deserves a proper and balanced view of mathematics.