Name: The world of mathematics
ISBN: 9780486432687

The world of mathematics

I found this book (again) after reading an excerpt written by H. L. Gold, who describes this book: All this and much more I got from an overwhelming kind of book published by Simon & Schuster. The name of it is The World of Mathematics and it comes in four volumes, boxed, more that 2,500 stunning pages. Besides chapters on every sort of math proper, there are biographies of the greatest mathematicians, from Ah-mosé, the Egyptian scribe, to the present day - the flyleaf of the book says "To Einstein," but it goes beyond him. If time travel existed, I can think of few worthier, or more predictably successful uses, than to send this book back half a century to the lonely, unloved genius of Madras. The world would benefit beyond imagination...

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teddyhMar 2025

Also The World of Mathematics (1956) by James R. Newman.

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eigenvalueJun 2020

The World of Mathematics by James R. Newman is a classic, filled with great biographies and short essays about various parts of math.

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SomeoneFeb 2020

“A Concise History of Mathematics” by D.J. Struik apparently (I have read only a tiny part of it) is good, but being 70+ years old, it is getting more and more dated.

It also doesn’t discuss the mathematics itself in much depth; it more connects topics and has references (plenty of them) for those who want to learn about those topics.

“The World of Mathematics” by J.R. Newman isn’t a history, but more a sample of pure and, mostly, applied (“How to hunt a submarine” is the title of a chapter on operations research) mathematics.

I think it is worth mentioning, though, certainly for “tourists” who aren’t aiming for full coverage of the subject, but just want to visit nice viewpoints.

Also, I think it’s quite readable for non-mathematicians, as it doesn’t do much ‘real’ math (Stillwell's _Mathematics and its History_, mentioned elsewhere, has more of that in its first 25 pages than this 1000+ page work), and its chapters can be read in isolation.

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skymuseDec 2018

Old mathematics books are also interesting. Really cool to see how notation has evolved over centuries of mathematical inquiry. Right now I'm reading "The World of Mathematics, Volume One" and it is quite a relaxing read when starting the day with a good coffee.

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yantramsNov 2018

World of Mathematics - An amazing compendium of accessible content straight from the masters - Poincare, Jonathan Swift, Neumann, Bishop Berkeley, Cayley etc https://www.amazon.com/World-Mathematics-James-Newman-Hardco... I believe it is available on archive.org

What Is Mathematics? by Richard Courant and Herbert Robbins published in 1941. One of the most beginner friendly yet rigorous books out there for a survey of many areas in mathematics.

You can find hundreds of gems here from erstwhile Soviet Union - https://mirtitles.org/

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drallisonApr 2017

I am reminded of the chapter "How To Hunt A Submarine" by Phillip M. Morse and George E Kimball in James R. Newman's World of Mathematics. It's a classic in Operations Research and documents very effective analysis and hunting techniques from WW2.

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