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She is best known for her curve, the witch of Agnesi, which appears in almost all high school and undergraduate math books. She was a child prodigy who frequented the salon circuit, discussing mathematics, philosophy, history, and music in multiple languages. She wrote one of the first vernacular textbooks on calculus and was appointed chair of mathematics at the university in Bologna. In later years, however, she became a prominent figure within the Catholic Enlightenment, gave up the academic world, and devoted herself to the poor, the sick, the hungry, and the homeless. Indeed, the life of Maria Agnesi reveals a complex and enigmatic figure -- one of the most fascinating characters in the history of mathematics.

Using newly discovered archival documents, Massimo Mazzotti reconstructs the wide spectrum of Agnesi's social experience and examines her relationships to various traditions -- religious, political, social, and mathematical. This meticulous study shows how she and her fellow Enlightenment Catholics modified tradition in an effort to reconcile aspects of modern philosophy and science with traditional morality and theology.

Mazzotti's original and provocative investigation is also the first targeted study of the Catholic Enlightenment and its influence on modern science. He argues that Agnesi's life is the perfect lens through which we can gain a greater understanding of mid-eighteenth-century cultural trends in continental Europe.

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Blaise Pascal - French Mathematician and Religious Philosopher is the biography of Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher. Pascal was a child prodigy who was educated by his father. His earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the construction of mechanical calculators, the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by generalizing the work of Evangelista Torricelli. Pascal also wrote in defense of the scientific method. His two most famous works are the Lettres provinciales and the Pensées. Pascal suffered from ill health throughout his life and died two months after his 39th birthday. Blaise Pascal - French Mathematician and Religious Philosopher is highly recommended for those interested in learning more about this accomplished mathematician and religious philosopher. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Wonderful look at mathematics, the times & the author
A Fantastic Book -- this 400+ page manuscript nicely mixes mathematical science with a historical view of the development (1930's through early 1980's) of mathematical research in the United States.This book is highlyreadable, extremely enjoyable and quite straightforward with details andopinions.One gets a first hand insight into how the author approached hisresearch, his career, and his life.Halmos has always been a brilliant andskillful writer but his contributions have mostly been in the technicalarena; this time he has provided a volume we can all enjoy.I found itdifficult to put this book down once I began its reading. ... Read more

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The name Bourbaki is known to every mathematician. Many also know something of the origins of Bourbaki, yet few know the full story. In 1935, a small group of young mathematicians in France decided to write a fundamental treatise on analysis to replace the standard texts of the time. They ended up writing the most influential and sweeping mathematical treatise of the twentieth century, Les élements de mathématique. Maurice Mashaal lifts the veil from this secret society, showing us how heated debates, schoolboy humor, and the devotion and hard work of the members produced the ten books that took them over sixty years to write. The book has many first-hand accounts of the origins of Bourbaki, their meetings, their seminars, and the members themselves. He also discusses the lasting influence that Bourbaki has had on mathematics, through both the Élements and the Seminaires. The book is illustrated with numerous remarkable photographs. Readership Students, mathematicians, and historians interested in the group of mathematicians known as Bourbaki. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Balanced overview of rebarbative biographees
This is a very solid overview of the Bourbaki school, though obviously nothing like a full-fledged biography or monograph. The treatment is slightly more sophisticated than what you might find in a series of Scientific American articles (e.g., the author is confident that readers won't be scared off by an occasional integral sign or 2x2 matrix). I read the French edition, so I can't comment on the translation, though I was abashed to learn that the French adjectival form is not "bourbakien," as I might have guessed, but "bourbachique".

One of the main virtues of the book is that it's frank enough to include many thoughtful criticisms of the Bourbaki style and content. For example, although the Bourbaki were dedicated to following an axiomatic method, they ignored Gödel's incompleteness theorem, aside from an occasional dismissive reference. (That theorem shows that if you start from a system of axioms, you can't deduce all "mathematical truths" from them -- i.e., you can run across some statements that are consistent with the axioms but that cannot be deduced from them). The Bourbaki also ignored category theory, even though one of its inventors (Samuel Eilenberg) was a member of the group for a while. Today category theory is the dominant framework for describing the fundamental structures of mathematics. The Bourbaki also disdained so-called applied mathematics, including probability theory and dynamics, for its lack of "purity," even though it has yielded much mathematical fruit in the past 50 years. (Indeed it represents much of the lasting glory of French mathematics, e.g. the work of Fourier, Legendre, Lebesgue, Henri Poincaré and even Jacques Hadamard, whose seminars were a role model for the Bourbakis' and who supervised the PhDs of two of the group's founding members.) In short, the Bourbaki seem to have ignored or disdained rather lots of stuff. The bourbachique closed-mindedness ultimately contributed to the obsolescence of their approach.

The book's candor is also a bit of a flaw. By the end of the book the members of the group come across as the dogmatic, elitist clique their contemporaries accused them of being. They do seem to have been a livelier bunch in person than what I'd expected from their impersonal, austere, diagram-less presentation of mathematics. But while having a sense of humor was a prerequisite for being invited to join, the examples of their humor are for the most part sophomoric, and occasionally mean-spirited. Readers who already weren't Bourbaki fans might feel vindicated after reading this book; I can't vouch for what their fans might feel. Overall a quite interesting, but not uplifting, brief intellectual biography.

Despite Obvious Flaws, it's a colorful book, providing a clear look at rather common mathematical values and beliefs
For values and beliefs for a large group of mathematicians, this is a helpful book.For Bourbakian values and beliefs have been, by and large, adopted by the academic masses, alas. (expression of a Bourbakian value and a Bourbakian belief from p.75 "basic concepts are treated as abstract entities whose nature and concrete meaning are insignificant") Still, it's a nice tourist guide, even has lots and lots of color snaps.

But the text just reads and feels odd. It might just be due to some weaknesses in the text's translation from the French. All the same, sometimes I have no idea what is being written about or why.

For example, on page 41 I read "the fundamental theorem of algebra, which states that any polynomial with real coefficients has at least one complex root (in other words, there is a complex numer x that makes the expression equal to zero)" WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?! Not only useless, it's nonsense. The basic thought on complex numbers and polynomials with real-valued coefficients is the following. If any polynomial equation with real coefficients has a complex number z as a root, then the complex conjugate of z is also a root of the polynomial equation.

Interesting for fans of Bourbaki's texts
This is very interesting for fans of any of Bourbaki's mathematics texts.It has photos of many of the members taken at their meetings, and information about how the group operated.You'd never know it from the final product, but their original goal was to write a calculus book!Several of the founding members had just begun teaching, and they were unhappy with the standard French calculus text of the day--a multivolume work by Goursat that they considered out of date.They decided to write a little bit of background material on algebra and general topology, and somehow ended up with the books we all know and love.
The book also describes the personality quirks of the members, and has some commentary on the contents of the various texts of Bourbaki.It doesn't explain technical details like why Bourbaki chose to define integrals the way they did.
If you didn't major in math, this book probably won't interest you. ... Read more

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In the late fourth and early fifth centuries of our era, Hypatia of Alexandria was the world's greatest living mathematician and astronomer. A strikingly beautiful woman and a devoted celibate, she lived in a city as turbulent and troubled as Baghdad or Beirut is today. She achieved fame not only in her special field, but also as a philosopher, religious thinker, and teacher who attracted a large popular following. Her life ended tragically in violence at the hands of a rampaging mob of Christian fanatics, who killed her for her "pagan" beliefs, some say at the instigation of St. Cyril of Alexandria.

This is the first biography of Hypatia to integrate all aspects of her life. Mathematician Michael Deakin emphasizes that, though she was a philosopher, she was first and foremost a mathematician and astronomer of great accomplishment. In a fascinating narrative that brings to life a richly diverse ancient society, he describes her work so that the mathematics, presented in straightforward terms, finds its true place in the context of her life as a whole. Deakin supplies full detail on the historical, intellectual, and religious context of Hypatia's times. He also analyzes the pattern of her life and thought, and finally gives an account of the events leading up to her lynch-mob execution.

Although this outrageous crime has made Hypatia a powerful symbol of intellectual freedom and feminist aspiration to this day, Deakin makes clear that the important intellectual contributions of her life's work should not be overshadowed by her tragic death. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

The Lost World of Hypatia
The disappointing thing about this book is the lack of a good narrative. The problem is that there is so little known about Hypatia and her world that not a lot can be said. Try to imagine a colony in Egypt of mostly Greek ethnicity, where pagans and Christians both fought and coexisted and interacted, if not always well, with a Jewish minority. The culture was in decline and the science, such as it was, died with Hypatia. This resembles the contemporary USA more than Egypt or any place in North Africa or the Middle East today. The academic mathematics community has become utterly moribund and it is being followed by theoretical physics (see Lee Smolin's book "The Trouble with Physics"). Who is our version of Hypatia? Perhaps Lynn Margulis, a biologist whe dares to be different.

Very good
This book is very good. The historical context about Hypatia's time and life is very interesting. Read this book, you'll learn much more about the christian's church in the first times.

A specialist's view
This is a difficult book to evaluate. Deakin is a mathematician, not a classical historian, and apart from his discussion of Hypatia's place in Alexandrian mathematics, this biography contains little that is not already to be found elsewhere, most notably in Maria Dzielska's study. Deakin does a reasonable job of putting Hypatia in a cultural context, but his understanding of late antiquity is superficial and admittedly garnered largely from encyclopedias. On the other hand, he has closely studied the sources for Hypatia's life (which he includes in an appendix) and the meagre evidence for her influence on philosophy and science. His introduction to astrolabes and conic sections is of some intrinsic interest and helps illuminate the state of knowledge in the fifth century, but since we have not one shred of writing that is inarguably Hypatia's work, the connection is rather tenuous. Nonetheless Deakin's conclusions give a valuable new perspective on this best-known of female Hellenists: one of a teacher with a wide range of interests, if not an original thinker. ... Read more

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A biography of the eighteenth-century black tobacco farmer who taught himself mathematics, astronomy, and clockmaking; became famous for his almanacs; and assisted in the original survey of Washington, D.C. ... Read more

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Benjamin Banneker review
Inside Benjamin Banneker: Scientist and Mathematician lies many secrets of the life of one of the 18th centuries most accomplished black Americans. To find out more about this man, read the book by Kevin Conley. The book is all about the life of Benjamin Banneker, an 18th century free black American who wrote almanacs and was an original surveyor of Washington D.C. I would recommend this book to any Americans who wanted to learn more about the people involved with the history of their country.
This book being a biography, I feel that I must review my thoughts on the man being written about. Benjamin Banneker was a very important man of our country, and this book does him justice. He was a man of many accomplishments, and none of them were easy to come by. He had to manage a tobacco farm and complete astronomy calculations all while trying to get his almanac published.He was a hard worker, and that is why I admire him.
One aspect of the book that I was really impressed with was the way the author used vivid vocabulary in just the right spots. He described everyhitng that was important with enhanced vocabulary and detail. An example of this would be when the author was describing the detail of Mr. Bannekers work he would use phrases like "nearly incomprehensible" or "mind boggling". The vocabulary in this book made it much more interesting than it would have been if it had not been used so well.
I think that the author of this book did Mr. Banneker the justice he deserved. He includes all of the major things that Banneker accomplished in his life and really makes it feel like you know him. He included many helpful visuals and pictures of Mr. Banneker's work, which really made the reader understand how hard the things he was doing were.
I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about one of the great people that lived before them. Overall, Benjamin Banneker: Scientist And Mathematician is a very good book and should be read by all.




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Customer Reviews (21)

To reiterate:a terrible book
This book reads like a bunch of 7th grade book reports about various individuals and topics strung together in roughly chronological order.Its character studies are shallow, the writing is bland, and its exposition of key ideas are embarrassingly shallow.I got it for $2 to try out my new Kindle.The good news is that the Kindle is fantastic.What an awful book though.

Just plain poorly written
As tempting as it may seem, do not get roped into reading this book.Admittedly, I purchased this book based solely on the blurb written on the back and my interest in mathematics.However, the story, as presented by Aczel, is not as intriguing as it obviously could be.In all honesty, reading the Wikipedia article on Nicolas Bourbaki is a much more worth-while experience.

The writing style is at once dull and long-winded.Ideas are repeated over and over again and far too much time is spent on topics only cursorily related to Bourbaki and its mathematics.When any detail is presented at all it is done so without exposition, without any real attempt to educate the reader.

The book literally reads like a poorly written high-school paper.

It's An OK Read If You Have Interest In The Subject
A moderately entertaining read.Aczel takes us behind the development of strutural mathematics as well as the Bourbaki group of French mathematicians - both the history and the personalities.There is precious little on art, candidly, and the mathematics is also quite light - focusing on set theory and the development of "New Math".Rather, it reads more like a biograpghy of a couple of the Bourbaki - Weil and Groethendieck, and not a real riveting one at that.The premise is interesting enough, and the book is OK if you have interest in the subject, but it is not Aczel's best work.

Better than the Reviews
I have The Mystery of the Aleph, The Riddle of the Compass, Fermat's Last Theorem, and even Complete Business Statistics. I like his writing, but was dissuaded by the extreme negativity of the reviews on this site. Finally, I decided to trust my gut. I enjoyed and profited from his version of Bourbaki. However, I think he may be out on a limb equating Grothendieck with Einstein.

The Artist and the Mathematician

This book gives the impression that the Bourbaki group alone discovered and laid bare the mathematical structures studied in modern mathematics and originated the idea of founding the edifice of mathematics upon set theory. There is no mention of all the controversies and work done on the foundations and structures of mathematics prior to Bourbaki. For all the talk about Bourbaki and their investigation and championing of mathematical structures, the book says virtually nothing about what a mathematical structure is or looks like, or how the Bourbaki approach or the nature of their conception of mathematics differed from what preceded them, except to say they were rigorous and built mathematics upon set theory.

There is some mathematical terminology in the book, but no mathematics. The content is mostly biographical, with Andre Weil and Alexandre Grothendieck getting, in the final count, the most attention. The Bourbaki group's first meeting, in December of 1934, isn't mentioned until chapter seven, eighty pages in. From page 81 to page 127 the subject is Bourbaki, then the book shifts topic and is about Roman Jakobson, Claude Levi-Strauss and the rise of structuralism, including Roland Barthes, Jaques Lacan and others. The author claims that Bourbaki's structrual view of mathematics, their focus on mathematical structures and the structure of mathematics, is a major source, along with the linguists Sausurre and Jakobson, of what became, in the literary and sociological fields, Structuralism. The author displays no critical thought in these pages, and the presentation is superficial and misleading throughout.

For the mathematically adventurous, Leo Corry's book Modern Algebra and the Rise of Mathematical Structures places Bourbaki in historical context. See especially chapter 7, Nicolas Bourbaki: Theory of Structures, which is also available online as a .pdf file.
... Read more

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Dr Zoltan Dienes is a world-famous theorist and tireless practitioner of the 'new mathematics' - an approach to mathematics learning which uses games, songs and dance to make it more appealing to children. Holder of numerous honorary degrees, Dr Dienes has had a long and fruitful career, breaking new ground and gaining many followers with his revolutionary ideas of learning often complex mathematical concepts in such fun ways that children are often unaware that they are learning anything.This is an honest account of an academic radical, covering his sometimes unconventional childhood in Hungary, France, Germany and Britain, his peripatetic academic career, his successes and failures and his personal affairs. Occasionally sad or moving, frequently amusing and always fascinating, this autobiography shares some of the intelligence, spirit and humanity that have made Dr Dienes such a landmark figure in mathematics education. A 'must-read' for anyone with a professional interest in the field, this is also an absorbing and frank book for anyone interested in the life of a man of ideas who was not afraid to take on the might of the traditionalist educational establishment. ... Read more

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This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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For many years mathematicians visiting Stanford enjoyed guided tours through the Pólya photograph album led by Professor Pólya himself, who passed along reminiscences and stories about the individuals and meetings represented there. The collection is a highly personal (many of the pictures were taken by Pólya's wife, Stella) view of the mathematical community of the 20th century. In this book, G.L. Alexanderson has put together an extensive selection of these pictures, accompanied by remarks taken from tapes of Pólya's conversations with visitors, so that a wider audience can enjoy this encounter with a man who occupies a special place in mathematics. ... Read more