Math 629 - Spring 2003

Book Report

You are expected to write a book report on a history of mathematics topic. We encourage biographies of noted mathemathematicians. Also of great interest are books on a particular aspect of the history of mathematics such as

• History of linear algebra
• History of abstract algebra
• The mathematical work of Fermat
• The history of probability
• The mathematics of Mesopotamia
• Fibonacci numbers
• History of mathematical encryption
• The axiom of choice

General subject and popular accounts are strongly discouraged. The key word here is scholarly.

Directions: The book report should be three-five pages typed. It should emphasize mathematical aspects of the subject. Any style for references is ok.

I reserve the right to approve all titles. So, when you have selected a book please let me know - before you purchase it. One other important fact is that each student must select a different book.

Here is an interesting book from the origins of mathematics viewpoint:

Verran, Helen; Science and an African Logic. viii, 277 p., 9 line drawings, 7 tables. 2001
Cloth $55.00tx 0-226-85389-6 Fall 2001
Paper $19.00tx 0-226-85391-8 Fall 2001

Here's a few more books:

Engines of Logic: Mathematicians and the Origin of the Computer
by Martin Davis

Turing and the Universal Machine : The Making of the Modern Computer
by Jon Agar, Jon Turney (Editor)

Computability and Unsolvability
by Martin Davis

B Belhoste, Augustin-Louis Cauchy. A Biography (New York, 1991).

J V Grabiner, The Origins of Cauchy's Rigorous Calculus (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1981).

J Lützen, Joseph Liouville 1809-1882: Master of Pure and Applied Mathematics (New York- Berlin, 1990).

Christianson, G. E. In the Presence of Creation: Isaac Newton and His Times. New York: Free Press, 1984.

De Gandt, F. Force and Geometry in Newton's Principia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.

Westfall, R. S. The Life of Isaac Newton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Westfall, R. S. Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

White, M. Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1997.

J Benardete, Infinity (Oxford, 1964).

E Maor, To infinity and beyond : A cultural history of the infinite (Boston, MA, 1987).

R Rucker, Infinity and the mind (Prinveton, N.J., 1995).

N Ya Vilenkin, In search of infinity (Boston, MA, 1995).

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