Puts maths firmly in a 'real world' context, in which you can see how philosophers and mathematicians were attempting to solve everyday problems and mysteries.
Mathematics - A Curious History opens new doors to the amazing world of maths. Telling the exciting story from a historical perspective, it shows how mathematical science advanced through the discoveries of the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians and Greeks, the great scholars of medieval Islam and Europe, and the Renaissance and the birth of the Scientific Revolution. This is all explored in a real world context by the renowned science writer Joel Levy.
From the simplest concepts of numbers and arithmetic, geometry and algebra, trigonometry and calculus, right through to infinity and chaos theory, Mathematics - A Curious History introduces and explains the most important concepts in accessible, non-technical language. Along the way we meet the extraordinary characters who made great leaps in our understanding of mathematical concepts and theorems, from Pythagoras and Archimedes, to Fibonacci and Fermat, Godel and Turing.
Joel Levy is a popular science writer who has written for publications as diverse as Marie Claire, the Daily Express, Independent on Sunday and Fortean Times. He has published more than 15 books, including A Bee in a Cathedral, The Bedside Book of Chemistry, Newton's Notebook and Poison: A Social History.