Mathematics and Its History

This is a brilliant book that conveys a beautiful, unified picture of mathematics. It is not an encyclopedic history, it is history for the sake of understanding mathematics. There is an idea behind every topic, every section makes a mathematical point, showing how the mathematical theories of today has grown inevitably from the natural problems studied by the masters of the past. Math history textbooks of today are often enslaved by the modern curriculum, which means that they spend lots of time on the question of rigor in analysis and they feel obliged to deal with boring technicalities of the history of matrix theory and so on. This is of course the wrong way to study history. Instead, one of the great virtues of a history such as Stillwell's is that it studies mathematics the way mathematics wants to be studied, which gives a very healthy perspective on the modern customs. Again and again topics which are treated unnaturally in the usual courses are seen here in their proper setting. This makes this book a very valuable companion over the years. Another flaw of many standard history textbooks is that they spend too much time on trivial things like elementary arithmetic, because they think it is good for aspiring teachers and, I think, because it is fashionable to deal with non-western civilisations. It gives an unsound picture of mathematics if Gauss receives as much attention as abacuses, and it makes these books useless for understanding any of the really interesting mathematics, say after 1800. Here Stillwell saves us again. The chapter on calculus is done by page 170, which is about a third of the book. A comparable point in the more mainstream book of Katz, for instance, is page 596 of my edition, which is more than two thirds into that book. Petty details aside, the main point is the following: This is the single best book I have ever seen for truly understanding mathematics as a whole.

It is a very good book. It has presented very clearly some difficult-to-understand relationship especially the link between algebra and geometry. It is a very good balance - history, Mathmatics, biography all mixed very well together. Highly recommended.

Stillwell covers a lot of ground in a short undergraduate text intended to unify various mathematical disciplines. Naturally, _Mathematics_and_its_History_ begins with the early Greeks and in particular geometry (which is how mathematics was typically expressed then). The development of algebra and polynomial forms is described followed by perspective geometry. The invention of calculus and the closely related discovery of infinite series provide the backdrop for short biographies of prominent mathematicians (mostly dead white males to multicultural deconstructionists). The development of elliptic integrals (used in solving functions with specified boundary conditions such as a Neumann problem found in fluid mechanics). The treatment then diverges to physical problems including the vibrating string and hydrodynamics, together with a note on the renown Bernoulli family. Then Stillwell returns to the esoteric in complex numbers, topology, group theory and logic with some comments on computation at the end. Some mathematicians may find the overview to lack comprehensiveness, but the book's brevity for each topic and biographical notes present a balanced approach to the more casual reader about this important field of study and how it developed.

This is an overall good text. It offers a very in depth history of many many mathematical ideas. It gets quite technical at times, which can be a good or bad thing, depending on what you are looking for.