A History of Mathematics

by Carl B. Boyer and Uta C. Merzbach

Book Overview

"Boyer and Merzbach distill thousands of years of mathematics into this fascinating chronicle. From the Greeks to Godel, the mathematics is brilliant; the cast of characters is distinguished; the ebb and flow of ideas is everywhere evident. And, while tracing the development of European mathematics, the authors do not overlook the contributions of Chinese, Indian, and Arabic civilizations. Without doubt, this is--and will long remain--a classic one-volume...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471543977
• ISBN13: 9780471543978
• Release Date: March 1991
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 736 Pages
• Weight: 2.31 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.0" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

boyer 2nd edition

I picked up this and Burton's similarly named book, and I just wanted to make a few comments and comparisons of the two. First off, both are excellent reads, and although they cover the same subject they approach it in two different manners. Boyer's text takes the style of a history book to approach the topic. It often focuses on the people and on the time period, commenting on political/cultural going-on. Its an enjoyable book to read, almost in the sense of reading a novel. Usually the mathematics is brought up in the text, but most of the proofs and derivations are often glossed over. Possible many of those mathematical details were in the questions that are no longer at the end of the chapters. But I found missing those details to be somewhat frustrating. Conversely Burton takes the approach of a mathematics textbook that follows the story line of history. Its filled with proofs and examples, but isn't quite as rich in historical content. Each chapter ends with numerous "homework" problems, often times relating to specific solutions to a problem found by different mathematicians. Both are excellent books, but depending on your personal taste and interests you may prefer one approach over the other. If you are looking to sit down and work through historical mathematical problems, Burton is probably right for you. If you want to cozy up and imagine what life and thought was like throughout different times in civilization, Boyer is probably your answer. Hope this is helpful.

Intriguing Book

Practically any page you open this book to presents fascinating insight into some step in the development of mathematics.

A great introduction to the history of math

When I was a high school student, I loved math, but hated math classes, with their tedious emphasis on going over things until even the most mathematically ungifted either got the stuff (or gave up!) the repetitive teaching necessary to inculcate it into the densest heads, and the problem solving that went on long after I had "got it." Would that I'd then had this book. Boyer has written a great introductory work to both the history of math and math itself, which you can read at your own pace, study until you get it and then move on, with lots of references if you for some reason want to understand something even better. By grouping the chapters around eras of mathematicians, and various mathematicians, he makes the history of math approachable even to those without degrees in mathematics. This is not necessarily THE book you'd want to read if you're working on a masters or PhD in math, but the sort of book you'd really love to read as a bright high school student or undergraduate student. All in all a great book, but, as other reviewers have written, not exactly the Encyclopaedia Britanica, but then, how many people read the Britanica for pleasure?

The best book on history of mathematics

I first bought the firt edition about 25 years ago when I was still a matriculation student preparing the examination to university. This book has been with me for more than one fourth of a decade. I also own the second edition of the same book.It is a pity that the new author did not take the opportunity to expand the book to a much wider scale. ( what I mean is not to a encycoplaedic but at least expand the history of mathematics in the 20 the century. Now back to the book. What makes this book different other ones, I think it is the historical intuition of Boyer makes this book eternal. Some book arrange the content chronologically and somes book arrange the content according to the topics. However, Boyer cleverly combined that two . Also, he also extinctly discuss the topics proportional to their importance in the history. There is not too much mathematics and there is not too few mathematics, Just a few words to describe that is " that book is really well balanced " and gives you everything and also the range of audience is wide, coupled with the very very reasonable price, it is the book on mathematical history who are interested should own one.

Wide exposition of the development of Mathematics

In this book the historian of mathematics Carl Boyer exposes the development of mathematics from the pre-history to modern times in a wide view, covering all the important mathematics and mathematicians from ancient times to our modern times. This reviewed version by Uta Merzbach is easier to read than the first edition by Boyer and its updated. I disagree that you need to be a mathematician or so to read this, all you need is the interest. In fact when I read this book I was entering high school and I found it easy and enjoyable to read. The author will not spend any time with hard mathematics, rather he is just going to name the results (so all you need to know is what those technical names means superficially, but you don't need to know the detailed math). This book is very nice if you want to have a deep and broad view on the history of math, so don't think this is an ultimate guide. Actually I think this book can be considered as a general introduction to the history of mathematics and to mathematics itself, it will make you get used to many technical terms and their intuitive meaning before getting deep in the formal math.