A Historian Looks Back: The Calculus as Algebra and Selected Writings

Title

A Historian Looks Back: The Calculus as Algebra and Selected Writings

Files

Description

Judith Grabiner has written extensively on the history of mathematics. This collection, representing some of Grabiner's finest work, highlights the benefits of studying the development of mathematical ideas and the relationship between culture and mathematics. A large part of the book—Part I—is a welcome reprinting of Grabiner's “The Calculus as Algebra: J.-L. Lagrange, 1736–1813” (1990), which focuses on Lagrange's pioneering effort to reduce the calculus to algebra. Ten articles—Part II—span a range of other mathematical topics, including widely held myths about the history of mathematics and the work of such mathematicians as Descartes, Newton, and Maclaurin. Six of these articles won awards from the MAA for expository excellence.This collection is an inspiring resource for courses on the history of mathematics. It reveals the creativity that has produced the mathematics we see as the finished product in textbooks.

ISBN

9781614445067

Publication Date

2010

Publisher

Mathematical Association of America

City

Washington D.C.

Keywords

mathematics, history

Disciplines

History | Mathematics

A Historian Looks Back: The Calculus as Algebra and Selected Writings
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