This book, in three parts, describes three phases in the development of the modern theory and calculation of the Moon's motion. Part I explains the crisis in lunar theory in the 1870s that led G.W. Hill to lay a new foundation for an analytic solution, a preliminary orbit he called the "variational curve." Part II is devoted to E.W. Brown's completion of the new theory as a series of successive perturbations of Hill's variational curve. Part III describes the revolutionary developments in time-measurement and the determination of Earth-Moon and Earth-planet distances that led to the replacement of the Hill Brown theory in 1984.

This volume presents a selection of 434 letters from and to the Dutch physicist and Nobel Prize winner Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (1853-1928), covering the period from 1883 until a few months before his death in February 1928. The sheer size of the available correspondence (approximately 6000 letters from and to Lorentz) preclude a full publication. The letters included in this volume have been selected according to various criteria, the most important of which is scientific importance. A second criterion has been the availability of letters both from and to Lorentz, so that the reader can follow the exchange between Lorentz and his correspondent. Within such correspondences a few unimportant items, dealing with routine administrative or organizational matters, have been omitted. An exception to the scientific criterion is the exchange of letters between Lorentz and Albert Einstein, Max Planck, Woldemar Voigt, and Wilhelm Wien during World War I: these letters have been included because they shed important light on the disruption of the scientific relations during the war and on the political views of these correspondents as well as of Lorentz. similar reasons the letters exchanged with Einstein and Planck on post-war political issues have been included. Biographical sketch Hendrik Antoon Lorentz was born on July 18, 1853 in the Dutch town of Arnhem. He was the son of a relatively well-to-do owner of a nursery.

Covering both the history of mathematics and of philosophy, Descartes's Mathematical Thought reconstructs the intellectual career of Descartes most comprehensively and originally in a global perspective including the history of early modern China and Japan. Especially, it shows what the concept of "mathesis universalis" meant before and during the period of Descartes and how it influenced the young Descartes. In fact, it was the most fundamental mathematical discipline during the seventeenth century, and for Descartes a key notion which may have led to his novel mathematics of algebraic analysis.

The theories of V. V. Wagner (1908-1981) on abstractions of systems of binary relations are presented here within their historical and mathematical contexts. This book contains the first translation from Russian into English of a selection of Wagner's papers, the ideas of which are connected to present-day mathematical research. Along with a translation of Wagner's main work in this area, his 1953 paper 'Theory of generalised heaps and generalised groups,' the book also includes translations of three short precursor articles that provide additional context for his major work. Researchers and students interested in both algebra (in particular, heaps, semiheaps, generalised heaps, semigroups, and groups) and differential geometry will benefit from the techniques offered by these translations, owing to the natural connections between generalised heaps and generalised groups, and the role played by these concepts in differential geometry. This book gives examples from present-day mathematics where ideas related to Wagner's have found fruitful applications.

Distinctions of Reason and Reasonable Distinctions is an intellectual biography of John Wallis (1616-1703), professor of mathematics at Oxford for over half a century. His career spans the political tumult of the English Civil Wars, the religious upheaval of the Church of England, and the fascinating developments in mathematics and natural philosophy. His ability to navigate this terrain and advance human learning in the academic world was facilitated by his use of the Jesuit Francisco Suarez's theory of distinctions. This Roman Catholic's philosophy in the hands of a Protestant divine fostered an instrumentalism necessary to bridge the old and new. With this tool, Wallis brought modern science into the university and helped form the Royal Society.

This work offers a re-edition of twelve mathematical tablets from the site of Tell Harmal, in the borders of present-day Baghdad. In ancient times, Tell Harmal was Saduppum, a city representative of the region of the Diyala river and of the kingdom of Esnunna, to which it belonged for a time. These twelve tablets were originally published in separate articles in the beginning of the 1950s and mostly contain solved problem texts. Some of the problems deal with abstract matters such as triangles and rectangles with no reference to daily life, while others are stated in explicitly empirical contexts, such as the transportation of a load of bricks, the size of a vessel, the number of men needed to build a wall and the acquisition of oil and lard. This new edition of the texts is the first to group them, and takes into account all the recent developments of the research in the history of Mesopotamian mathematics. Its introductory chapters are directed to readers interested in an overview of the mathematical contents of these tablets and the language issues involved in their interpretation, while a chapter of synthesis discusses the ways history of mathematics has typically dealt with the mathematical evidence and inquires how and to what degree mathematical tablets can be made part of a picture of the larger social context. Furthermore, the volume contributes to a geography of the Old Babylonian mathematical practices, by evidencing that scribes at Saduppum made use of cultural material that was locally available. The edited texts are accompanied by translations, philological, and mathematical commentaries.

The Theory of the Top was originally presented by Felix Klein as an 1895 lecture at Goettingen University that was broadened in scope and clarified as a result of collaboration with Arnold Sommerfeld. The Theory of the Top: Volume IV. Technical Applications of the Theory of the Top is the fourth and final installment in a series of self-contained English translations that provide insights into kinetic theory and kinematics.

This contributed volume investigates the active role of the different contexts of mathematics teaching on the evolution of the practices of mathematical concepts, with particular focus on their foundations. The book aims to deconstruct the strong and generally wide-held conviction that research in mathematics constitutes the only driving force for any progress in the development of mathematics as a field. In compelling and convincing contrast, these chapters aim to show the productive function of teaching, showcasing investigations from countries and regions throughout various eras, from Old Babylonia through the 20th Century. In so doing, they provide a critical reflection on the foundations of mathematics, as well as instigate new research questions, and explore the interfaces between teaching and research.

The present book is a translation into English of Elernenta CU'f'Varurn Linearurn-Liber Prirnus, written in Latin, by the Dutch statesman and mathematician Jan de Witt (1625-1672). Together with its sequel, Ele- rnenta CU'f'Varurn Linearurn-Liber Secundus, it constitutes the first text- book on Analytic Geometry, based on the ideas of Descartes, as laid down in his Geornetrie of 1637. The first edition of de Witt's work appeared in 1659 and this translation is its first translation into English. For more details the reader is referred to the Introduction. Apart from this translation and this introduction, the present work con- tains an extensive summary, annotations to the translation, and two ap- pendices on the role of the conics in Greek mathematics. The translation has been made from the second edition, printed by the Blaeu Company in Amsterdam in 1684. In 1997 the translator published a translation into Dutch of the same work, likewise supplied with an introduction, a summary, notes, and two appendices. This edition appeared as a publication of the Stichting Mathe- matisch Centrum Amsterdam. The present translation, however, is a direct translation of the Latin text. The rest of this work is an English version of the introduction, the summary, the notes, and the appendices, based on the Dutch original.

Euler was not only by far the most productive mathematician in the history of mankind, but also one of the greatest scholars of all time. He attained, like only a few scholars, a degree of popularity and fame which may well be compared with that of Galilei, Newton, or Einstein.

Moreover he was a cosmopolitan in the truest sense of the word; he lived during his first twenty years in Basel, was active altogether for more than thirty years in Petersburg and for a quarter of a century in Berlin.

Leonhard Euler's unusually rich life and broadly diversified activity in the immediate vicinity of important personalities which have made history, may well justify an exposition.

This book is based in part on unpublished sources and comes right out of the current research on Euler. It is entirely free of formulae as it has been written for a broad audience with interests in the history of culture and science.

This engaging text describes the development of singular perturbations, including its history, accumulating literature, and its current status. While the approach of the text is sophisticated, the literature is accessible to a broad audience. A particularly valuable bonus are the historical remarks. These remarks are found throughout the manuscript. They demonstrate the growth of mathematical thinking on this topic by engineers and mathematicians. The book focuses on detailing how the various methods are to be applied. These are illustrated by a number and variety of examples. Readers are expected to have a working knowledge of elementary ordinary differential equations, including some familiarity with power series techniques, and of some advanced calculus. Dr. O'Malley has written a number of books on singular perturbations. This book has developed from many of his works in the field of perturbation theory.

This book celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Institute of Mathematics, Statistics and Scientific Computing (IMECC) of the University of Campinas, Brazil, by offering reviews of selected research developed at one of the most prestigious mathematics institutes in Latin America. Written by senior professors at the IMECC, it covers topics in pure and applied mathematics and statistics ranging from differential geometry, dynamical systems, Lie groups, and partial differential equations to computational optimization, mathematical physics, stochastic process, time series, and more. A report on the challenges and opportunities of research in applied mathematics - a highly active field of research in the country - and highlights of the Institute since its foundation in 1968 completes this historical volume, which is unveiled in the same year that the International Mathematical Union (IMU) names Brazil as a member of the Group V of countries with the most relevant contributions in mathematics.

The Legacy of Freudenthal pays homage to Freudenthal and his work on mathematics, its history and education. Almost all authors were his scholars or co-workers. They testify to what they learned from him. Freudenthal himself contributes posthumously. His didactical phenomenology of the concept of force is both provocative and revealing in its originality, compared with what is usually found in physics instruction. Freudenthal is portrayed as a universal human being by Josette Adda. He made considerable contributions to mathematics itself, e.g. on homotopy theory and Lie groups in geometry. The exposition of Freudenthal's mathematical life and work is on Van Est's account. Henk Bos discusses his historical work. The essay review of the 8th edition of Hilbert's Grundlagen der Geometrie serves as a vehicle of thought. The main part of the book, however, concerns Freudenthal's work on mathematics education. Christine Keitel reviews his final book Revisiting Mathematics Education (1991). Fred Goffree describes Freudenthal's Working on Mathematics Education' both from an historical as well as a theoretical perspective. Adrian Treffers analyses Freudenthal's influence on the development of realistic mathematics education at primary level in the Netherlands, especially his influence on the Wiskobas-project of the former IOWO. Freudenthal once predicted the disappearance of mathematics as an individual subject in education sometime around the year 2000, because it would by then have merged with integrated thematic contexts. Jan de Lange anticipates this future development and shows that Freudenthal's prediction will not come true after all. Reflective interludes unveil how he might haveinfluenced those developments. Freudenthal contributed a wealth of ideas and conceptual tools to the development of mathematics education -- on contexts, didactical phenomenology, guided reinvention, mathematisation, the constitution of mental objects, the development of reflective thinking, levels in learning processes, the development of a mathematical attitude and so on -- but he did not design very much concrete material. Leen Streefland deals with the question of design from a theoretical point of view, while applying Freudenthal's ideas on changing perspective and shifting. For teachers, researchers, mathematics educators, mathematicians, educationalists, psychologists and policy makers.

We see numbers on automobile license plates, addresses, weather reports, and, of course, on our smartphones. Yet we look at these numbers for their role as descriptors, not as an entity in and unto themselves. Each number has its own history of meaning, usage, and connotation in the larger world. The Secret Lives of Numbers takes readers on a journey through integers, considering their numerological assignments as well as their significance beyond mathematics and in the realm of popular culture. Of course we all know that the number 13 carries a certain value of unluckiness with it. The phobia of the number is called Triskaidekaphobia; Franklin Delano Roosevelt was known to invite and disinvite guests to parties to avoid having 13 people in attendance; high-rise buildings often skip the 13th floor out of superstition. There are many explanations as to how the number 13 received this negative honor, but from a mathematical point of view, the number 13 is also the smallest prime number that when its digits are reversed is also a prime number. It is honored with a place among the Fibonacci numbers and integral Pythagorean triples, as well as many other interesting and lesser-known occurrences. In The Secret Lives of Numbers, popular mathematician Alfred S. Posamentier provides short and engaging mini-biographies of more than 100 numbers, starting with 1 and featuring some especially interesting numbers -like 6,174, a number with most unusual properties -to provide readers with a more comprehensive picture of the lives of numbers both mathematically and socially.

The general principles by which the editors and authors of the present edition have been guided were explained in the preface to the first volume of Mathemat ics of the 19th Century, which contains chapters on the history of mathematical logic, algebra, number theory, and probability theory (Nauka, Moscow 1978; En glish translation by Birkhiiuser Verlag, Basel-Boston-Berlin 1992). Circumstances beyond the control of the editors necessitated certain changes in the sequence of historical exposition of individual disciplines. The second volume contains two chapters: history of geometry and history of analytic function theory (including elliptic and Abelian functions); the size of the two chapters naturally entailed di viding them into sections. The history of differential and integral calculus, as well as computational mathematics, which we had planned to include in the second volume, will form part of the third volume. We remind our readers that the appendix of each volume contains a list of the most important literature and an index of names. The names of journals are given in abbreviated form and the volume and year of publication are indicated; if the actual year of publication differs from the nominal year, the latter is given in parentheses. The book History of Mathematics from Ancient Times to the Early Nineteenth Century in Russian], which was published in the years 1970-1972, is cited in abbreviated form as HM (with volume and page number indicated). The first volume of the present series is cited as Bk. 1 (with page numbers)."

Sofia Kovalevskaya was a brilliant and determined young Russian woman of the 19th century who wanted to become a mathematician and who succeeded, in often difficult circumstances, in becoming arguably the first woman to have a professional university career in the way we understand it today. This memoir, written by a mathematician who specialises in symplectic geometry and integrable systems, is a personal exploration of the life, the writings and the mathematical achievements of a remarkable woman. It emphasises the originality of Kovalevskaya's work and assesses her legacy and reputation as a mathematician and scientist. Her ideas are explained in a way that is accessible to a general audience, with diagrams, marginal notes and commentary to help explain the mathematical concepts and provide context. This fascinating book, which also examines Kovalevskaya's love of literature, will be of interest to historians looking for a treatment of the mathematics, and those doing feminist or gender studies.

The Theory of the Top was originally presented by Felix Klein as an 1895 lecture at Gottingen University that was broadened in scope and clarified as a result of collaboration with Arnold Sommerfeld. The Theory of the Top: Volume III. Perturbations: Astronomical and Geophysical Applications is the third installment in a series of four self-contained English translations that provide insights into kinetic theory and kinematics."

The editors of the present series had originally intended to publish an integrated work on the history of mathematics in the nineteenth century, passing systemati cally from one discipline to another in some natural order. Circumstances beyond their control, mainly difficulties in choosing authors, led to the abandonment of this plan by the time the second volume appeared. Instead of a unified mono graph we now present to the reader a series of books intended to encompass all the mathematics of the nineteenth century, but not in the order of the accepted classification of the component disciplines. In contrast to the first two books of The Mathematics of the Nineteenth Century, which were divided into chapters, this third volume consists of four parts, more in keeping with the nature of the publication. 1 We recall that the first book contained essays on the history of mathemati 2 cal logic, algebra, number theory, and probability, while the second covered the history of geometry and analytic function theory. In the present third volume the reader will find: 1. An essay on the development of Chebyshev's theory of approximation of functions, later called "constructive function theory" by S. N. Bernshtein. This highly original essay is due to the late N. I. Akhiezer (1901-1980), the author of fundamental discoveries in this area. Akhiezer's text will no doubt attract attention not only from historians of mathematics, but also from many specialists in constructive function theory."

The chief purpose of the book is to present, in detail, a compilation of proofs of the Cantor-Bernstein Theorem (CBT) published through the years since the 1870's. Over thirty such proofs are surveyed.

The book comprises five parts. In the first part the discussion covers the role of CBT and related notions in the writings of Cantor and Dedekind. New views are presented, especially regarding the general proof of CBT obtained by Cantor, his proof of the Comparability Theorem, the ruptures in the Cantor-Dedekind correspondence and the origin of Dedekind's proof of CBT.

The second part covers the first CBT proofs published (1896-1901). The works of the following mathematicians is considered in detail: Schroder, Bernstein, Bore, Schoenflies and Zermelo. Here a subtheme of the book is launched; it concerns the research project following Bernstein's Division Theorem (BDT).

In its third part the book covers proofs that emerged during the period when the logicist movement was developed (1902-1912). It covers the works of Russell and Whitehead, Jourdain, Harward, Poincare, J. Konig, D. Konig (his results in graph theory), Peano, Zermelo, Korselt. Also Hausdorff's paradox is discussed linking it to BDT.

In the fourth part of the book are discussed the developments of CBT and BDT (including the inequality-BDT) in the hands of the mathematicians of the Polish School of Logic, including Sierpi ski, Banach, Tarski, Lindenbaum, Kuratowski, Sikorski, Knaster, the British Whittaker, and Reichbach.

Finally, in the fifth part, the main discussion concentrates on the attempts to port CBT to intuitionist mathematics (with results by Brouwer, Myhill, van Dalen and Troelstra) and to Category Theory (by Trnkova and Koubek).The second purpose of the book is to develop a methodology for the comparison of proofs. The core idea of this methodology is that a proof can be described by two descriptors, called gestalt and metaphor. It is by comparison of their descriptors that the comparison of proofs is obtained. The process by which proof descriptors are extracted from a proof is named 'proof-processing', and it is conjectured that mathematicians perform proof-processing habitually, in the study of proofs.

New Edition - New in Paperback - This is the second revised edition of the first volume of the outstanding collection of historical studies of mathematics in the nineteenth century compiled in three volumes by A. N. Kolmogorov and A. P. Yushkevich. This second edition was carefully revised by Abe Shenitzer, York University, Ontario, Canada. The historical period covered in this book extends from the early nineteenth century up to the end of the 1930s, as neither 1801 nor 1900 are, in themselves, turning points in the history of mathematics, although each date is notable fo a remarkable event: the first for the publication of Gauss' "Disquisitiones arithmeticae," the second for Hilbert's "Mathematical Problems." Beginning in the second quarter of the nineteenth century mathematics underwent a revolution as crucial and profound in its consequences for the general world outlook as the mathematical revolution in the beginning of the modern era. The main changes included a new statement of the problem of the existence of mathematical objects, particulary in the calculus, and soon thereafter the formation of non-standard structures in geometry, arithmetic and algebra. The primary objective of the work has been to treat the evolution of mathematics in the nineteenth century as a whole; the discussion is concentrated on the essential concepts, methods, and algorithms.

The present essay stems from a history of polyhedra from 1750 to 1866 written several years ago (as part of a more general work, not published). So many contradictory statements regarding a Descartes manuscript and Euler, by various mathematicians and historians of mathematics, were encountered that it was decided to write a separate study of the relevant part of the Descartes manuscript on polyhedra. The contemplated short paper grew in size, as only a detailed treatment could be of any value. After it was completed it became evident that the entire manuscript should be treated and the work grew some more. The result presented here is, I hope, a complete, accurate, and fair treatment of the entire manuscript. While some views and conclusions are expressed, this is only done with the facts before the reader, who may draw his or her own conclusions. I would like to express my appreciation to Professors H. S. M. Coxeter, Branko Griinbaum, Morris Kline, and Dr. Heinz-Jiirgen Hess for reading the manuscript and for their encouragement and suggestions. I am especially indebted to Dr. Hess, of the Leibniz-Archiv, for his assistance in connection with the manuscript. I have been greatly helped in preparing the translation ofthe manuscript by the collaboration of a Latin scholar, Mr. Alfredo DeBarbieri. The aid of librarians is indispensable, and I am indebted to a number of them, in this country and abroad, for locating material and supplying copies.

The significance of foundational debate in mathematics that took place in the 1920s seems to have been recognized only in circles of mathematicians and philosophers. A period in the history of mathematics when mathematics and philosophy, usually so far away from each other, seemed to meet. The foundational debate is presented with all its brilliant contributions and its shortcomings, its new ideas and its misunderstandings.

Sophus Lie (1842-1899) is without doubt one of Norway's greatest scientific talents. His mathematical works have made him famous around the world no less than Niels Henrik Abel. The terms Lie groups and Lie algebra are today part of the standard mathematical vocabulary. In his comprehensive biography the author Arild Stubhaug let us come close to both the person Sophus Lie and his time. We follow him through childhood at the vicarage in Nodfjordeid, his growing up in Moss, school and studying in Christiania, travelling in Europe and his contacts with the leading mathematicians of his time. The academic and scientific career brought Lie from Christiania to Leipzig as professor, before the attempt to call him back to Norway, when she stood on the threshhold to national sovereignty, was successful.

The Almagest, by the Greek astronomer and mathematician Ptolemy, is the most important surviving treatise on early mathematical astronomy, offering historians valuable insight into the astronomy and mathematics of the ancient world.
Pedersen's 1974 publication, A Survey of the Almagest, is the most recent in a long tradition of companions to the Almagest. Part paraphrase and part commentary, Pedersen's work has earned the universal praise of historians and serves as the definitive introductory text for students interested in studying the Almagest.
In this revised edition, Alexander Jones, a distinguished authority on the history of early astronomy, provides supplementary information and commentary to the original text to account for scholarship that has appeared since 1974. This revision also incorporates various corrections to Pedersen's original text that have been identified since its publication.
This volume is intended to provide students of the history of astronomy with a self-contained introduction to the Almagest, helping them to understand and appreciate Ptolemy's great and classical work.