A Brief History of Numbers

Leo Corry

• A comprehensive yet succinct look at the development of conceptions of number from ancient Greece to the beginning of the twentieth century
• The history of mathematics has been a very active and changing field of research over the last 25 years
• Accessible to undergraduate students of mathematics and the sciences, teachers, engineers, professional mathematicians, and anyone with an interest in the history of mathematics

A Brief History of Numbers

Leo Corry

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A Brief History of Numbers

Leo Corry

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A Brief History of Numbers

Leo Corry

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A Brief History of Numbers

Leo Corry

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A Brief History of Numbers

Leo Corry

From Our Blog

From number theory to e-commerce

The American Mathematical Society held on October 1903 its regular meeting in New York City. The program announced a talk by Frank Nelson Cole (1861-1921), with the unpretending title of 'On the factorization of large numbers'. In due course, Cole approached the board and started to multiply the number 2 by itself, step after step and without saying a word, sixty seven times.

Posted on October 21, 2015

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The real charm of imaginary numbers

Few elementary mathematical ideas arouse the kind of curiosity and astonishment among the uninitiated as does the idea of the 'imaginary numbers', an idea embodied in the somewhat mysterious number i. This symbol is used to denote the idea of , namely, a number that when multiplied by itself yields -1. How come?

Posted on October 13, 2015

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Diamonds are forever, and so are mathematical truths?

Try googling 'mathematical gem'. I just got 465,000 results. Quite a lot. Indeed, the metaphor of mathematical ideas as precious little gems is an old one, and it is well known to anyone with a zest for mathematics. A diamond is a little, fully transparent structure all of whose parts can be observed with awe from any angle.

Posted on October 5, 2015

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