Great Moments in Mathematics Before 1650

Front Cover
American Mathematical Soc., 1983 M12 31 - 270 pages
Great Moments in Mathematics: Before 1650 is the product of a series of lectures on the history of mathematics given by Howard Eves. He presents here, in chronological order, 20 ``great moments in mathematics before 1650'', which can be appreciated by anyone who enjoys mathematics. These wonderful lectures could be used as the basis of a course on the history of mathematics but can also serve as enrichment to any mathematics course. Included are lectures on the Pythagorean Theorem, Euclid's Elements, Archimedes (on the sphere), Diophantus, Omar Khayyam, and Fibonacci.

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Contents

Lecture 2 The greatest egyptian pyramid
8
Lecture 3 From the laboratory into the study
16
Lecture 4 The first great theorem
26
Lecture 5 Precipitation of the first crisis
43
Lecture 6 Resolution of the crisis
53
Lecture 7 First step in organizing mathematic
62
Lecture 8 The mathematicians bible
70
Lecture 9 The thinker and the thug
83
Lecture 14 The poetmathematician of khorasan
148
Lecture 15 The blockhead
160
Lecture 16 An extraordinary and bizarre story
172
Lecture 17 Doubling the life of the astronomer
182
Lecture 18 The stimulating of science
194
Lecture 19 Slicing it thin
206
Lecture 20 The transformsolveinvert technique
215
Hints of the solution of some of the exercises
229

Lecture 10 A boost from astronomy
96
Lecture 11 the first great number theorist
110
Lecture 12 The syncopation of algebra
126
Lecture 13 Two early computing inventions
135
Index
261
Back cover
271
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