History of Mathematics – Mathematical Association of America

Featured Resources

Calculus for Teachers: Why Complex Numbers

By David Bressoud @dbressoud As of 2024, new Launchings columns appear on the third Tuesday of the month./ And now something else remarkable happens. If our function is differentiable at every point inside an open disc that contains x, no matter how small that disc might be, then the second derivative must exist everywhere inside that...

Rate My Professor

By Shriya V. Nagpal I had just finished introducing sequences, and the students were working on a practice problem before I presented it on the board. As I did most days, I walked around the classroom, checking in on their understanding. The students were distracted — registration for next semester had opened that morning for...

Abstract Algebra and Famous Impossibilities

Abstract Algebra and Famous Impossibilities aims to develop the abstract algebra necessary to prove the impossibility of four classical problems: trisecting the angle, doubling the cube, squaring the circle, and solving (in terms of radicals) the general quintic polynomial equation. The book is written in a very clear, friendly manner meant to make it accessible to...

The Polyhedrists: Art and Geometry in the Long Sixteenth Century

The sixteenth century in Europe was a time of great change and development. Just think of Copernicus and the heliocentric model of the universe. Or Martin Luther and his revolt against the Catholic Church for the practice of selling indulgences. Or painters using the theory of perspective to put a suggestion of three-dimensionality into their...

Felix Klein: Visions for Mathematics, Applications, and Education

Robert Fricke once compared Felix Klein to a triptych whose central panel concerns Klein's mathematical research, and whose flanking panels concern his interests in education and his organizational skills. As Tobies explains in her preface, "the goal of this book is to put this triptych into words and enrich it with a human dimension". Mathematically, Klein is...

A History of Mathematics in the United States and Canada: Volume 2: 1900-1941

David Zitarelli (1941–2018) was an ardent promoter of the history of mathematics whose contributions included co-organizing conference sessions, preparing numerous well-received articles and books, and encouraging younger scholars. He was especially interested in the history of American mathematics and taught a unique course on the subject for a decade at Temple University, his home throughout...

Symbols and Things

Historians of mathematics and mathematicians are more interested in the statement and transmission of mathematical ideas than in how these ideas were incorporated into physical documents. In this volume, historian of science and mathematics Kevin Lambert seeks to shift this emphasis. He examines the “materiality” of mathematics as represented on paper in nineteenth century Britain,...

The Doctrine of Triangles: A History of Modern Trigonometry

With the publication of this book, Glen van Brummelen, the noted Canadian historian and specialist in mathematical astronomy, has completed a comprehensive, scholarly, and engaging two-volume “scientific history” of the origins and development of trigonometry. The first of these volumes, The Mathematics of the Heavens and the Earth, was published by Princeton University Press in...

Arabic Logic from al-Fārābī to Averroes

The study of logic had already enjoyed a long and varied history before the turn of the twentieth century when people like Boole, Frege, Russell, and Peano transformed it into the discipline it is today. Textual traditions in logic stretch back more than two thousand years to the works of philosophers in Greece, India, and...

Alfonso’s Rectifying the Curved

It is well-known in the history of mathematics that similar ideas have appeared at different times and places, often separated by hundreds of years and thousands of miles. For example, we know that the Pythagorean Theorem appeared in Mesopotamian clay tablets well over a thousand years before the time of Pythagoras. The Euclidean algorithm for determining the greatest...

What’s the Use?

“How mathematics shapes everyday life” is the subtitle of Ian Stewart’s latest book, connecting a variety of applications of mathematical theories to disparate fields such as politics, climate change or the car industry. However, what makes the book really interesting is the common underlying theme of the "unreasonable effectiveness" of mathematics, that is, the author...

Cover of 'What's the Use?: How Mathematics Shapes Everyday Life' by Ian Stewart, featuring a bold, sans-serif title in white against a deep blue background, with subtle mathematical symbols and diagrams integrated into the design, conveying the book's focus on the pervasive role of mathematics in daily life.

Mathematics and Its History: A Concise Edition

This is a beautiful book. It will not be new to some readers, as it could/should be considered a 4th edition of Mathematics and Its History. The third edition was reviewed here. The first edition of the book weighed in at about 350 pages. By the third edition, there were 650 pages. The Concise Edition returns...

Cover of 'Mathematics and Its History: A Concise Edition' by John Stillwell, featuring a minimalist design with the title and author's name prominently displayed on a solid background.

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