Philosophy of mathematics Books

The extraordinary story of the solving of a puzzle that has confounded mathematicians since the 17th century. The solution of Fermat’s Last Theorem is the most important mathematical development of the 20th century. In 1963 a schoolboy browsing in his...

A fascinating book, from a leading maths educator and demystifier, that shows how maths is relevant to our everyday lives.  Have you ever wondered how the meter in a taxi works? Or why a lift takes so long to respond to your call? Is there a...

Here is the updated essential guide to mathematics, an authoritative reference book and timeline that explores the work of history's greatest mathematicians. These include the teasing genius of Pierre de Fermat, who said he knew the answers but rarely...

How playwrights from Alfred Jarry and Samuel Beckett to Tom Stoppard and Simon McBurney brought the power of abstract mathematics to the human stage.The discovery of alternate geometries, paradoxes of the infinite, incompleteness, and chaos theory...

'The story I'll tell here is about the evolution of the way we humans record and make sense of all the data that swirl around us...'Vector takes readers on an extraordinary 5000-year journey through the human imagination. The stars of this book, vectors...

A breathtakingly illustrated look at botanical spirals and the scientists who puzzled over them.Charles Darwin was driven to distraction by plant spirals, growing so exasperated that he once begged a friend to explain the mystery 'if you wish to...

An entertaining and enlightening history of irrational numbers, from ancient Greece to the twenty-first century.The ancient Greeks discovered them, but it wasn't until the nineteenth century that irrational numbers were properly understood and...

There is a wonderfully weird but real world out there, and we are a part of it. It is time for physics to take life seriously.Can we ever truly comprehend the universe before we fully understand consciousness and the wonders, and limits, of the mind? Ulf...

"One of the best critiques of current mathematics education I have ever seen."-Keith Devlin, math columnist on NPR's Morning EditionA brilliant research mathematician who has devoted his career to teaching kids reveals math to be creative and beautiful...

Legend has it that the first magic square, where all lines and diagonals add up to the same figure, was revealed more than 2,000 years ago when a river turtle appeared to have ancient Chinese numerals inscribed on sections of its shell.Patterns are...

Now Pappas has done it again, or rather, has done more! The pages of MORE JOY OF MATHEMATICS spill over with ideas, puzzles, games from all over the world, historic background, exciting graphics and up-to-the-minute math breakthrough. Readers will find...

The classic book that shares the enjoyment of mathematics with readers of all skill levels.What is so special about the number 30? Do the prime numbers go on forever? Are there more whole numbers than even numbers? The Enjoyment of Math explores these...

A fascinating exploration of the pentagon and its role in various culturesThe pentagon and its close cousin, the pentagram, have inspired individuals for the last two and half millennia, from mathematicians and philosophers to artists and naturalists...

A fascinating account of the breakthrough ideas that transformed probability and statisticsIn the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, gamblers and mathematicians transformed the idea of chance from a mystery into the discipline of probability, setting...

A comprehensive look at four of the most famous problems in mathematics. Tales of Impossibility recounts the intriguing story of the renowned problems of antiquity, four of the most famous and studied questions in the history of mathematics. First posed...

How science changed the way artists understand reality Exploring the Invisible shows how modern art expresses the first secular, scientific worldview in human history. Now fully revised and expanded, this richly illustrated book describes two...

The legendary Renaissance math duel that ushered in the modern age of algebraThe Secret Formula tells the story of two Renaissance mathematicians whose jealousies, intrigues, and contentious debates led to the discovery of a formula for the solution of...

The Greco-Roman mathematician Claudius Ptolemy is one of the most significant figures in the history of science. He is remembered today for his astronomy, but his philosophy is almost entirely lost to history. This groundbreaking book is the first to...

This book presents reverse mathematics to a general mathematical audience for the first time. Reverse mathematics is a new field that answers some old questions. In the two thousand years that mathematicians have been deriving theorems from axioms, it...

How music has influenced mathematics, physics, and astronomy from ancient Greece to the twentieth centuryMusic is filled with mathematical elements, the works of Bach are often said to possess a math-like logic, and Igor Stravinsky said "musical form is...

A book that finally demystifies Newton's experiments in alchemyWhen Isaac Newton's alchemical papers surfaced at a Sotheby's auction in 1936, the quantity and seeming incoherence of the manuscripts were shocking. No longer the exemplar of Enlightenment...

A lively and engaging look at logic puzzles and their role in recreation, mathematics, and philosophy.Logic puzzles were first introduced to the public by Lewis Carroll in the late nineteenth century and have been popular ever since. Games like Sudoku...

Sophie Germain taught herself mathematics by candlelight, huddled in her bedclothes. Ada Byron Lovelace anticipated aspects of general-purpose digital computing by more than a century. Cora Ratto de Sadosky advanced messages of tolerance and equality...

This is a cultural history of mathematics and art, from antiquity to the present. Mathematicians and artists have long been on a quest to understand the physical world they see before them and the abstract objects they know by thought alone. Taking...

This is the first full-scale biography of Leonhard Euler (1707-83), one of the greatest mathematicians and theoretical physicists of all time. In this comprehensive and authoritative account, Ronald Calinger connects the story of Euler's eventful life to...