Books IV to VII of Diophantus’ Arithmetica


Book Description

This edition of Books IV to VII of Diophantus' Arithmetica, which are extant only in a recently discovered Arabic translation, is the outgrowth of a doctoral dissertation submitted to the Brown University Department of the History of Mathematics in May 1975. Early in 1973, my thesis adviser, Gerald Toomer, learned of the existence of this manuscript in A. Gulchln-i Macanl's just-published catalogue of the mathematical manuscripts in the Mashhad Shrine Library, and secured a photographic copy of it. In Sep tember 1973, he proposed that the study of it be the subject of my dissertation. Since limitations of time compelled us to decide on priorities, the first objective was to establish a critical text and to translate it. For this reason, the Arabic text and the English translation appear here virtually as they did in my thesis. Major changes, however, are found in the mathematical com mentary and, even more so, in the Arabic index. The discussion of Greek and Arabic interpolations is entirely new, as is the reconstruction of the history of the Arithmetica from Diophantine to Arabic times. It is with the deepest gratitude that I acknowledge my great debt to Gerald Toomer for his constant encouragement and invaluable assistance.




The Arithmetica of Diophantus


Book Description

This volume offers an English translation of all ten extant books of Diophantus of Alexandria’s Arithmetica, along with a comprehensive conceptual, historical, and mathematical commentary. Before his work became the inspiration for the emerging field of number theory in the seventeenth century, Diophantus (ca. 3rd c. CE) was known primarily as an algebraist. This volume explains how his method of solving arithmetical problems agrees both conceptually and procedurally with the premodern algebra later practiced in Arabic, Latin, and European vernaculars, and how this algebra differs radically from the modern algebra initiated by François Viète and René Descartes. It also discusses other surviving traces of ancient Greek algebra and follows the influence of the Arithmetica in medieval Islam, Byzantium, and the European Renaissance down to the 1621 publication of Claude-Gaspard Bachet’s edition. After the English translation the book provides a problem-by-problem commentary explaining the solutions in a manner compatible with Diophantus’s mode of thought. The Arithmetica of Diophantus provides an invaluable resource for historians of mathematics, science, and technology, as well as those studying ancient Greek, medieval Islamic and Byzantine, and Renaissance history. In addition, the volume is also suitable for mathematicians and mathematics educators.




An Adventurer's Guide to Number Theory


Book Description

This witty introduction to number theory deals with the properties of numbers and numbers as abstract concepts. Topics include primes, divisibility, quadratic forms, and related theorems.




Apollonius: Conics Books V to VII


Book Description

With the publication of this book I discharge a debt which our era has long owed to the memory of a great mathematician of antiquity: to pub lish the /llost books" of the Conics of Apollonius in the form which is the closest we have to the original, the Arabic version of the Banu Musil. Un til now this has been accessible only in Halley's Latin translation of 1710 (and translations into other languages entirely dependent on that). While I yield to none in my admiration for Halley's edition of the Conics, it is far from satisfying the requirements of modern scholarship. In particular, it does not contain the Arabic text. I hope that the present edition will not only remedy those deficiencies, but will also serve as a foundation for the study of the influence of the Conics in the medieval Islamic world. I acknowledge with gratitude the help of a number of institutions and people. The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, by the award of one of its Fellowships for 1985-86, enabled me to devote an unbroken year to this project, and to consult essential material in the Bodleian Li brary, Oxford, and the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. Corpus Christi Col lege, Cambridge, appointed me to a Visiting Fellowship in Trinity Term, 1988, which allowed me to make good use of the rich resources of both the University Library, Cambridge, and the Bodleian Library.




Diophantine Geometry


Book Description

This is an introduction to diophantine geometry at the advanced graduate level. The book contains a proof of the Mordell conjecture which will make it quite attractive to graduate students and professional mathematicians. In each part of the book, the reader will find numerous exercises.




Great Moments in Mathematics (before 1650)


Book Description

[V.2] This is a companion to Great moments in mathematics before 1650. It can be appreciated by anyone with a working knowledge of beginning deferential and integral calculus. Includes: the birth of mathematical probability, the invention of the differential calculus, the discovery of non-Euclidean geometry, the discovery of noncommutative algebra, and the resolution of the four-color problem.




Fibonacci's De Practica Geometrie


Book Description

Leonardo da Pisa, perhaps better known as Fibonacci (ca. 1170 – ca. 1240), selected the most useful parts of Greco-Arabic geometry for the book known as De Practica Geometrie. This translation offers a reconstruction of De Practica Geometrie as the author judges Fibonacci wrote it, thereby correcting inaccuracies found in numerous modern histories. It is a high quality translation with supplemental text to explain text that has been more freely translated. A bibliography of primary and secondary resources follows the translation, completed by an index of names and special words.




The Rise and Development of the Theory of Series up to the Early 1820s


Book Description

The manuscript gives a coherent and detailed account of the theory of series in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It provides in one place an account of many results that are generally to be found - if at all - scattered throughout the historical and textbook literature. It presents the subject from the viewpoint of the mathematicians of the period, and is careful to distinguish earlier conceptions from ones that prevail today.




A History of Parametric Statistical Inference from Bernoulli to Fisher, 1713-1935


Book Description

This book offers a detailed history of parametric statistical inference. Covering the period between James Bernoulli and R.A. Fisher, it examines: binomial statistical inference; statistical inference by inverse probability; the central limit theorem and linear minimum variance estimation by Laplace and Gauss; error theory, skew distributions, correlation, sampling distributions; and the Fisherian Revolution. Lively biographical sketches of many of the main characters are featured throughout, including Laplace, Gauss, Edgeworth, Fisher, and Karl Pearson. Also examined are the roles played by DeMoivre, James Bernoulli, and Lagrange.




Classics in the History of Greek Mathematics


Book Description

The twentieth century is the period during which the history of Greek mathematics reached its greatest acme. Indeed, it is by no means exaggerated to say that Greek mathematics represents the unique field from the wider domain of the general history of science which was included in the research agenda of so many and so distinguished scholars, from so varied scientific communities (historians of science, historians of philosophy, mathematicians, philologists, philosophers of science, archeologists etc. ), while new scholarship of the highest quality continues to be produced. This volume includes 19 classic papers on the history of Greek mathematics that were published during the entire 20th century and affected significantly the state of the art of this field. It is divided into six self-contained sections, each one with its own editor, who had the responsibility for the selection of the papers that are republished in the section, and who wrote the introduction of the section. It constitutes a kind of a Reader book which is today, one century after the first publications of Tannery, Zeuthen, Heath and the other outstanding figures of the end of the 19th and the beg- ning of 20th century, rather timely in many respects.