Men of Mathematics
by E. T. Bell
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Description
From one of the greatest minds in contemporary mathematics, Professor E.T. Bell, comes a witty, accessible, and fascinating look at the beautiful craft and enthralling history of mathematics. Men of Mathematics provides a rich account of major mathematical milestones, from the geometry of the Greeks through Newton's calculus, and on to the laws of probability, symbolic logic, and the fourth dimension. Bell breaks down this majestic history of ideas into a series of engrossing biographies of show more the great mathematicians who made progress possible--and who also led intriguing, complicated, and often surprisingly entertaining lives. Never pedantic or dense, Bell writes with clarity and simplicity to distill great mathematical concepts into their most understandable forms for the curious everyday reader. Anyone with an interest in math may learn from these rich lessons, an advanced degree or extensive research is never necessary. show lessTags
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br77rino "Journey" is a wonderful review of a handful of important mathematical theorems, such as the Quadrature of the Lune and the Pythagorean Theorem.
Member Reviews
This was the book that piqued my interest in mathematics and the people who does mathematics for a living. Be aware that this book was written in the days when only caucasian western men did mathematics. Asian mathematics weren't considered and women mathematicians were considered to be novelties, not worthy of attention.
This book considered all of the heavy weights in mathematics at the time. From the Greeks onward until those mathematicians considered worthy at the time of Bell's writing. Bell's review of their lives are partly general biography, part assessment of their mathematics, and part psychological studies of why they did what they did. Bell is by no means an objective reporter of the facts. He definitely had his favorites and show more he had his not so favorites, and he was not shy about letting you know. That is partly why this is such a good book. He puts in his opinions of the foibles and genius of each of the men he is writing about and he puts their genius in a pecking order that he himself created. I found it informative and entertaining. Others may find it bothersome, but this is by far the most complete book of its kind for its day. I recommend it to anyone even remotely interested in mathematics and mathematicians. show less
This book considered all of the heavy weights in mathematics at the time. From the Greeks onward until those mathematicians considered worthy at the time of Bell's writing. Bell's review of their lives are partly general biography, part assessment of their mathematics, and part psychological studies of why they did what they did. Bell is by no means an objective reporter of the facts. He definitely had his favorites and show more he had his not so favorites, and he was not shy about letting you know. That is partly why this is such a good book. He puts in his opinions of the foibles and genius of each of the men he is writing about and he puts their genius in a pecking order that he himself created. I found it informative and entertaining. Others may find it bothersome, but this is by far the most complete book of its kind for its day. I recommend it to anyone even remotely interested in mathematics and mathematicians. show less
Don't let the introduction of this book fool you! While the front-matter is enticing and exciting, the rest of the book fails to live up to these expectations. This book manages to make an exciting topic boring and hard to suffer through via a combination of flowery, say-nothing prose and a focus on the people rather than the math.
OK, I get it -- for the most part, readers do want people stories over math, but those are not the people who are going to be reading this book. Know your audience, Eric Temple Bell. I would not recommend this book in the slightest.
If you're looking for a book that presents the history of nerdy shit well, treat yourself to "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" and skip over this drivel.
OK, I get it -- for the most part, readers do want people stories over math, but those are not the people who are going to be reading this book. Know your audience, Eric Temple Bell. I would not recommend this book in the slightest.
If you're looking for a book that presents the history of nerdy shit well, treat yourself to "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" and skip over this drivel.
When I was younger, I liked this book a lot. Later, however, it is easy to notice that there are several great mathematicians who are curiously omitted simply because they were female, and that some of the biographies have a few liberties taken with them to be more dramatic. As another reviewer said, this is a product of the times in which it was written. Still, a readable overview of the sometimes overly dramatic lives of the greatest male contributors to mathematics, but by now there are many more accurate and complete texts on the history of mathematics.
While there is one chapter on ancient mathematicians, the rest of the book is basically a chapter by chapter review of a dozen or so mathematicians, and their work, of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.
The writing is clear and lucid, occasionally humorous for some barbs that stick out like sore thumbs (he doesn't care for Napoleon for example), and thoroughly enjoyable. If you are a math or physics major you will learn a lot you didn't know. Highly recommended.
Fermat, Pascal, Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, Lagrange, Legendre, Euler, Gauss, Galois, Cantor, Lobachevsky, and many others.
The writing is clear and lucid, occasionally humorous for some barbs that stick out like sore thumbs (he doesn't care for Napoleon for example), and thoroughly enjoyable. If you are a math or physics major you will learn a lot you didn't know. Highly recommended.
Fermat, Pascal, Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, Lagrange, Legendre, Euler, Gauss, Galois, Cantor, Lobachevsky, and many others.
This is a wonderful book. The only reason I dock it a star is that a few of the accounts (Galois, Cantor) have proven to be inaccurate-to-lurid -- this fact does detract somewhat from its ultimate value. However, it is a fabulous read and a perennial inspiration, so I give the book loads of credit.
Thoroughly opinionated, sometimes historically inaccurate romp through mathematical genius.
Interesting book. Got me through many transit trips to and from work back in 2010 or so. Gives some history of the mathematician's lives and times along with their most cherished works. Includes people I never even heard of before. For instance, the book talks of Abel, Cauchy, Jacobi and Galois, but it also talks of Newton, Gauss, and Euler. It covers them in chronological order based on the birth date I think. I would have to check again to make sure.
Anyway, quite interesting for a novice mathematician or a person into the history of mathematics. I honestly don't know who else would be interested in this book.
On the second reading:
Men of Mathematics by E. T. Bell is a fascinating account of both the lives and the achievements of the show more greatest mathematicians in history. Since this is based on historical mathematicians, they don’t attempt to talk about the people that invented the concept of number. The book is split into 29 chapters with an introduction being included in the count. Some of the chapters include more than one mathematician, but most of them are devoted to only one. For instance, the second chapter talks about three Greek mathematicians; Zeno, Eudoxus, and Archimedes. It includes some of the things they developed but most of the book is devoted to the biographical aspect of it. So Zeno is included because of his four paradoxes that argue that motion is impossible, while Archimedes is included because he practically invented the Calculus without inventing it. Eudoxus is the opposite of Zeno in that he developed a method to deal with infinitesimals.
This book seems to be Europe-centered in that it jumps from the Ancient Greeks to Rene Descartes. So you won’t find an account of the lives of the great Hindu and Arabic Mathematicians, which is somewhat surprising. Ah well, maybe at the time not a lot was known about them. However, I won’t make too many excuses for Professor Bell. All I can say is that the book is good but incomplete.
So it covers Descartes, and the rest of the book is chronological in its treatment. Each person covered has an Epitaph or Epithet summing up their work. Gauss is called the “Prince of Mathematicians”, while the chapter covering the Bernoulli family is called “Nature or Nurture?” Fermat is known as “The Prince of Amateurs” and so on. Here is a list of the mathematicians covered in the book:
Zeno, Eudoxus, Archimedes
Rene Descartes
Pierre de Fermat
Blaise Pascal
Isaac Newton
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
The Bernoulli Family
Leonard Euler
Joseph-Louis Lagrange
Pierre-Simon de Laplace
Gaspard Monge and Joseph Fourier
Jean-Victor Poncelet
Johann Friedrich Carl Gauss
Augustin-Louis Cauchy
Nikolas Ivanovitch Lobachewsky
Niels Henrik Abel
Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi
William Rowan Hamilton
Evariste Galois
Arthur Cayley and James Joseph Sylvester
Karl Wilhelm Theodor Weierstrass and Sonja Kowalewski
George Boole
Charles Hermite
Leopold Kronecker
Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann
Ernst Eduard Kummer and Julius Wilhelm Richard Dedekind
Henri Poincaré
Georg Cantor
As I said earlier, the book does cover some parts of the work they did but the main focus is the biographical point of view.
I read this book before 2012, but I do not recall the exact dates. I decided to pick it back up and read it again to refresh my memories of it. show less
Anyway, quite interesting for a novice mathematician or a person into the history of mathematics. I honestly don't know who else would be interested in this book.
On the second reading:
Men of Mathematics by E. T. Bell is a fascinating account of both the lives and the achievements of the show more greatest mathematicians in history. Since this is based on historical mathematicians, they don’t attempt to talk about the people that invented the concept of number. The book is split into 29 chapters with an introduction being included in the count. Some of the chapters include more than one mathematician, but most of them are devoted to only one. For instance, the second chapter talks about three Greek mathematicians; Zeno, Eudoxus, and Archimedes. It includes some of the things they developed but most of the book is devoted to the biographical aspect of it. So Zeno is included because of his four paradoxes that argue that motion is impossible, while Archimedes is included because he practically invented the Calculus without inventing it. Eudoxus is the opposite of Zeno in that he developed a method to deal with infinitesimals.
This book seems to be Europe-centered in that it jumps from the Ancient Greeks to Rene Descartes. So you won’t find an account of the lives of the great Hindu and Arabic Mathematicians, which is somewhat surprising. Ah well, maybe at the time not a lot was known about them. However, I won’t make too many excuses for Professor Bell. All I can say is that the book is good but incomplete.
So it covers Descartes, and the rest of the book is chronological in its treatment. Each person covered has an Epitaph or Epithet summing up their work. Gauss is called the “Prince of Mathematicians”, while the chapter covering the Bernoulli family is called “Nature or Nurture?” Fermat is known as “The Prince of Amateurs” and so on. Here is a list of the mathematicians covered in the book:
Zeno, Eudoxus, Archimedes
Rene Descartes
Pierre de Fermat
Blaise Pascal
Isaac Newton
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
The Bernoulli Family
Leonard Euler
Joseph-Louis Lagrange
Pierre-Simon de Laplace
Gaspard Monge and Joseph Fourier
Jean-Victor Poncelet
Johann Friedrich Carl Gauss
Augustin-Louis Cauchy
Nikolas Ivanovitch Lobachewsky
Niels Henrik Abel
Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi
William Rowan Hamilton
Evariste Galois
Arthur Cayley and James Joseph Sylvester
Karl Wilhelm Theodor Weierstrass and Sonja Kowalewski
George Boole
Charles Hermite
Leopold Kronecker
Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann
Ernst Eduard Kummer and Julius Wilhelm Richard Dedekind
Henri Poincaré
Georg Cantor
As I said earlier, the book does cover some parts of the work they did but the main focus is the biographical point of view.
I read this book before 2012, but I do not recall the exact dates. I decided to pick it back up and read it again to refresh my memories of it. show less
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- Canonical title
- Men of Mathematics
- Original title
- Men of Mathematics
- Original publication date
- 1937
- People/Characters
- Pierre de Fermat; Blaise Pascal; Isaac Newton; Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz; Zeno; Eudoxus (show all 35); Archimedes; Zeno of Elea; Joseph-Louis Lagrange; Pierre-Simon Laplace; Gaspard Monge; Joseph Fourier; Jean-Victor Poncelet; Carl Friedrich Gauss; Augustin-Louis Cauchy; Nikolas Ivanovitch Lobatchewsky; Niels Henrik Abel; Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi; William Rowan Hamilton; Evariste Galois; Arthur Cayley; James Joseph Sylvester; Karl W.T. Weierstrass; Sonja Kowalewski; George Boole; Charles Hermite; Leopold Kronecker; Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann; Ernst Eduard Kummer; Richard Dedekind; Henri Poincaré; Georg Cantor; Jacob Bernoulli; Nicolas Bernoulli; Johannes Bernoulli
- Important places
- St. Petersburg, Russia; Berlin, Germany; Paris, France
- Dedication
- TO TOBY
- First words
- This section is headed 'Introduction' rather than 'Preface' (which it really is) in the hope of decoying habitual preface-skippers into reading - for their own comfort - at least the following paragraphs down to the first r... (show all)ow of stars before going on to meet some of the great mathematicians.
- Quotations
- In general every essentially new problem in physics leads to types of differential equations which demand the creation of new branches of mathematics for their solution.
To the early developers of the calculus the notions of variables and limits were intuitive; to us they are extremely subtle concepts hedged about with thickets of semi-metaphysical mysteries concerning the nature of numbers, ... (show all)both rational and irrational. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)As Cantor said, "The essence of mathematics resides in its freedom"; the present "revolution" is but another assertion of that freedom.
- Blurbers
- Russell, Bertrand
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- ISBNs
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- 22