This seminal collection gathers together many general writings of one of the world's leading historians of mathematics. Organized thematically, these essays ponder the intellectual underpinnings of the field, examine the major topics in the history of mathematics, and recount the bizarre history of pseudomath.
Ivor Grattan-Guinness explores how people understand mathematics—the routes of learning they take as they make important discoveries and study mathematical concepts and theories. The essays in the first part of the book discuss the history of mathematics as a field and its central philosophical issues. Those in the next part address the history of mathematics education and its importance to current modes of teaching. In the last section Grattan-Guinness investigates various understudied aspects of math, including numerology, Masonic symbols in classical music, and the links between mathematics and Christianity.
This collection includes several essays that are difficult to find anywhere else. All historians of mathematics and students of the field will want a copy of this remarkable resource on their bookshelves.