MATHEMATICS AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF NUMBERS

Book ID/图书代码： 14630012B58386

English Summary/英文概要： Legend has it that the first magic square, where all lines and diagonals add up to the same figure, was revealed more than 2,000 years ago when a river turtle appeared to have ancient Chinese numerals inscribed on sections of its shell. Patterns are everywhere in nature, and counting, measuring, and calculating changes are as old as civilization itself, as are many of the theorems and laws of math. The Pythagorean Theorem was used to plot out fields for planting crops before the ancient Greek Pythagoras was even born, but the story begins long before that, with tally marks on rock and bone surviving from the Stone Age. Here is the essential guide to mathematics, an authoritative reference book and timeline that explores the work of history s greatest mathematicians. From the teasing genius of Pierre de Fermat, who said he knew the answers but rarely gave them up, to the fractal pattern discovered by Waclaw Sierpinski now used to plan the route a mailman takes, here are 100 landmark moments in this intensely rigorous discipline, seen through the eyes of the people who lived them. Glimpse the abstract landscape of infinite numbers and multi-dimensional shapes as you learn about the most famous math men of all. Pythagoras had a love of numbers so strong it led to a violent death. Then there is Fibonacci, whose guide for bookkeepers changed the way we add and Descartes, who took inspiration from a fly to convert numbers into shapes and back again, changing math forever. Over many centuries, great minds puzzled over the evidence and, step-by-step, edged ever closer to the truth. Behind every one of these breakthrough moments there s a story about a confounding puzzle that became a discovery and changed the way we see the world. Here are one hundred of the most significant and we call these Ponderables. In Mathematics: An Illustrated History of Numbers, you ll get a peak into the Imponderables, too, the mysteries yet to be solved that will one day lead great thinkers forward to an even greater understanding of the universe. Includes a removable fold-out concertina neatly housed in the back of the book. This fold-out provides a 12-page Timeline History of Mathematics that embeds the story in historical context and shows Who Did What When at a glance. The reverse side features some of the greatest mathematical enigmas and interesting facts about the world of numbers.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 當一隻河龜外殼背上似乎銘刻有古代中國的數字時，揭開了在2000多年前，傳說中的第一個幻方，(幻方又稱為魔方，方陣或廳平方。在一個由若干個排列整齊的陣列成的正方形中，圖中任意一橫行、一縱行及對角線的幾個數之和都相等，具有這種性質的圖表，稱為“幻方”。中國古代稱為“河圖”、“洛書”，又叫“縱橫圖”), 在這個矩陣圖中，所有的線條和對角線都匯算出相同的一個數字。這個換算模式在適用於各種場合，計算、測量，和換算變化與古代文明一樣來得久遠，原本是許多數學的定理和定律。勾股定理的誕生，甚至早於古希臘數學家比達哥斯拉出生前，這條基本的幾何定理原先是人類用以劃分農作物的區域而產生的，但是在這個故事開始之前，人們在遺存的骨骼中就發現，人類早在石器時代就已經在岩石上繪製記號。在這本基礎的數學史權威的文獻參考書籍中，探索了歷史上最偉大的數學家們的貢獻。從法國業餘數學家皮埃爾.德.費馬，對數學專研的孜孜不倦，到由瓦茨瓦夫•謝爾賓斯基發現的分形圖（拓撲學），如今已運用於郵差規劃郵遞路線。在這部嚴謹的100個具有里程碑意義的隻字片語中，讀者可以輕鬆理解這生澀的數字概念。(Sandy)

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About the Author/作者介绍： Tom Jackson, the Editor of Mathematics, is a science author based in the United Kingdom who has written many books, covering everything from axolotls to Zoroastrianism. Mr. Jackson studied zoology at the University of Bristol, and still lives in that city with his wife and three children, where he can be found mainly in the attic.

Format:HARDCOVER

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