Mathematics and Its History

John Stillwell

jun 2013 · Springer Science & Business Media

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One of the disappointments experienced by most mathematics students is that they never get a course in mathematics. They get courses in calculus, algebra, topology, and so on, but the division of labor in teaching seems to prevent these different topics from being combined into a whole. In fact, some of the most important and natural questions are stifled because they fall on the wrong side of topic boundary lines. Algebraists do not discuss the fundamental theorem of algebra because "that's analysis" and analysts do not discuss Riemann surfaces because "that's topology," for example. Thus if students are to feel they really know mathematics by the time they graduate, there is a need to unify the subject. This book aims to give a unified view of undergraduate mathematics by approaching the subject through its history. Since readers should have had some mathematical experience, certain basics are assumed and the mathe matics is not developed as formally as in a standard text. On the other hand, the mathematics is pursued more thoroughly than in most general histories of mathematics, as mathematics is our main goal and history only the means of approaching it. Readers are assumed to know basic calculus, algebra, and geometry, to understand the language of set theory, and to have met some more advanced topics such as group theory, topology, and differential equations.