Full name: Journey through Genius: The Great Theorems of Mathematics

Author: William Dunham Year: 1990 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Science, History Purchase/reserch links: Goodreads OpenLibrary LibraryThing Amazon ISBNs: 9780140147391 014014739X

Like masterpieces of art, music, and literature, great mathematical theorems are creative milestones, works of genius destined to last forever. Now William Dunham gives them the attention they deserve.Dunham places each theorem within its historical context and explores the very human and often turbulent life of the creator - from Archimedes, the absentminded theoretician whose absorption in his work often precluded eating or bathing, to Gerolamo Cardano, the sixteenth-century mathematician whose accomplishments flourished despite a bizarre array of misadventures, to the paranoid genius of modern times, Georg Cantor. He also provides step-by-step proofs for the theorems, each easily accessible to readers with no more than a knowledge of high school mathematics. A rare combination of the historical, biographical, and mathematical, is a fascinating introduction to a neglected field of human creativity. Similar books: An Imaginary Tale by Paul J. Nahin Mathematics: From the Birth of Numbers by Jan Gullberg The Math Book by Clifford A. Pickover God Created the Integers by Stephen Hawking e: The Story of a Number by Eli Maor Poincare's Prize by George G. Szpiro A History of Pi by Petr Beckmann The Joy of Pi by David Blatner A History of Mathematics by Carl B. Boyer The Nothing that Is by Robert Kaplan The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved by Mario Livio Archimedes' Revenge by Paul Hoffman Mathematics by Timothy Gowers The Mathematical Tourist by Ivars Peterson The Math Gene by Keith Devlin The Mathematical Universe by William Dunham The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins Genome by Matt Ridley Big Bang by Simon Singh Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin