Math Makers: The Lives and Works of 50 Famous Mathematicians

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It never occurred to me that the field of mathematics would best be explored by studying the lives of the mathematicians who defined it. Thankfully, Math Makers has corrected my mistake. Unlike science, which is built on theories that are then proven through experimentation, the rules of mathematics and numbers are fixed… but someone has to be clever enough, creative enough, and insightful enough to reveal them and document them.

So while science is a search, mathematics is an invention, constantly added to and modified by those who come next.

Math Makers details the lives and contributions of some of the greatest minds in human history, exploring how they shaped the world of mathematics as we know it today. There are icons like Euclid and Pythagoras, polymaths like Newton, Kepler, and Descartes, visionaries like Mandelbrot and von Neumann, and practitioners like Babbage, Lovelace, and Turing. And along the way, plenty of lesser-known names like Ceva and Agnesi get a moment in the sun (even though the Agnesi chapter is woefully short).

These snapshot biographies are the perfect launching pads for further investigation, and with 50 luminaries to choose from, the potential paths of inquiry are endless.


Reviewed By:

Author Alfred S. Posamentier
Star Count /5
Format Hard
Page Count 448 pages
Publisher Prometheus Books
Publish Date 2019-07-02
ISBN 9781633885202
Bookshop.org Buy this Book
Issue August 2019
Category Science & Nature
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