Author Information

Leo Corry

Blurb

This is the story behind the concept of number, from the Pythagoreans to the turn of the 20th century, through Greek, Islamic, and European mathematics.

Table of Contents

1. The System of Numbers: An Overview
2. Writing Numbers: Now and Then
3. Numbers and Magnitudes in the Greek Mathematical Tradition
4. Construction Problems and Numerical Problems in the Greek Mathematical Tradition
5. Numbers in the Tradition of Medieval Islam
6. Numbers in Europe from the 12th to the 16th Century
7. Number and Equations at the Dawn of the Scientific Revolution
8. Number and Equations in the Works of Descartes, Newton, and Their Contemporaries
9. New Definitions of Complex Numbers at the Beginning of the 19th Century
10. What Are Numbers and What Should They Be? Understanding Numbers.