This book attempts to fill two gaps which exist in the standard textbooks on the History of Mathematics. One is to provide the students with material that could encourage more critical thinking. General textbooks, attempting to cover three thousand or so years of mathematical history, must necessarily oversimplify just about everything, the practice of which can scarcely promote a critical approach to the subject. For this, I think a more narrow but deeper coverage of a few select topics is called for. The second aim is to include the proofs of important results which are typically neglected in the modern history of mathematics curriculum. The most obvious of these is the oft-cited necessity of introducing complex numbers in applying the algebraic solution of cubic equations. This solution, though it is now relegated to courses in the History of Mathematics, was a major occurrence in our history. It was the first substantial piece of mathematics in Europe that was not a mere extension of what the Greeks had done and thus signified the coming of age of European mathematics. The fact that the solution, in the case of three distinct real roots to a cubic, necessarily involved complex numbers both made inevitable the acceptance and study of these numbers and provided a stimulus for the development of numerical approximation methods. Unique features include: * a prefatory essay on the ways in which sources may be unreliable, followed by an annotated bibliography; * a new approach to the historical development of the natural numbers, which was only settled in the 19th century; * construction problems of antiquity, with a proof that the angle cannot be trisected nor the cubeduplicated by ruler and compass alone; * a modern recounting of a Chinese word problem from the 13th century, illustrating the need for consulting multiple sources when the primary source is unavailable; * multiple proofs of the cubic equation, including the proof that the algebraic solution uses complex numbers whenever the cubic equation has three distinct real solutions; * a critical reappraisal of Horner's Method; The final chapter contains lighter material, including a critical look at North Korea's stamps commemorating the 350th birthday of Newton, historically interesting (and hard to find) poems, and humorous song lyrics with mathematical themes. The appendix outlines a few small projects which could serve as replacements for the usual term papers.

General textbooks, attempting to cover three thousand or so years of mathematical history, must necessarily oversimplify just about everything, the practice of which can scarcely promote a critical approach to the subject. To counter this, History of Mathematics offers deeper coverage of key select topics, providing students with material that could encourage more critical thinking. It also includes the proofs of important results which are typically neglected in the modern history of mathematics curriculum.

Number theory as studied by the logician is the subject matter of the book. This first volume can stand on its own as a somewhat unorthodox introduction to mathematical logic for undergraduates, dealing with the usual introductory material: recursion theory, first-order logic, completeness, incompleteness, and undecidability. In addition, its second chapter contains the most complete logical discussion of Diophantine Decision Problems available anywhere, taking the reader right up to the frontiers of research (yet remaining accessible to the undergraduate). The first and third chapters also offer greater depth and breadth in logico-arithmetical matters than can be found in existing logic texts. Each chapter contains numerous exercises, historical and other comments aimed at developing the student's perspective on the subject, and a partially annotated bibliography.

It is Sunday, the 7th of September 1930. The place is Konigsberg and the occasion is a small conference on the foundations of mathematics. Arend Heyting, the foremost disciple of L. E. J. Brouwer, has spoken on intuitionism; Rudolf Carnap of the Vienna Circle has expounded on logicism; Johann (formerly Janos and in a few years to be Johnny) von Neumann has explained Hilbert's proof theory-- the so-called formalism; and Hans Hahn has just propounded his own empiricist views of mathematics. The floor is open for general discussion, in the midst of which Heyting announces his satisfaction with the meeting. For him, the relationship between formalism and intuitionism has been clarified: There need be no war between the intuitionist and the formalist. Once the formalist has successfully completed Hilbert's programme and shown "finitely" that the "idealised" mathematics objected to by Brouwer proves no new "meaningful" statements, even the intuitionist will fondly embrace the infinite. To this euphoric revelation, a shy young man cautions "According to the formalist conception one adjoins to the meaningful statements of mathematics transfinite (pseudo-')statements which in themselves have no meaning but only serve to make the system a well-rounded one just as in geometry one achieves a well rounded system by the introduction of points at infinity."

This book is about the rise and supposed fall of the mean value theorem. It discusses the evolution of the theorem and the concepts behind it, how the theorem relates to other fundamental results in calculus, and modern re-evaluations of its role in the standard calculus course. The mean value theorem is one of the central results of calculus. It was called "the fundamental theorem of the differential calculus" because of its power to provide simple and rigorous proofs of basic results encountered in a first-year course in calculus. In mathematical terms, the book is a thorough treatment of this theorem and some related results in the field; in historical terms, it is not a history of calculus or mathematics, but a case study in both. MVT: A Most Valuable Theorem is aimed at those who teach calculus, especially those setting out to do so for the first time. It is also accessible to anyone who has finished the first semester of the standard course in the subject and will be of interest to undergraduate mathematics majors as well as graduate students. Unlike other books, the present monograph treats the mathematical and historical aspects in equal measure, providing detailed and rigorous proofs of the mathematical results and even including original source material presenting the flavour of the history.

Mathematics originates with intuition. But intuition alone can only go so far and formalism develops to handle the more difficult problems. Formalism, however, has its inherent dangers. There are three types of formalism. Type I formalism, exemplified in the work of Euler, is basically heuristic reasoning, the use of familiar reasoning in areas where the reasoning might not or ought not apply. The results include startling successes, and also theorems admitting exceptions. Type II formalism, associated with names like Bolzano, Cauchy, and Weierstrass, attempts to clarify the situation by means of precise definitions of the terms used. Type III formalism, the axiomatic method, leaves the fundamental concepts undefined, but offers precise rules for their use. Such precision deserts intuition and one pays the price. Most dramatically, the formal definitions of Type II formalism allow for the construction of monsters - bizarre counterexamples that exhibit behaviour inconsistent with existing intuition. The initially repellant nature of these "monsters" leads to dissatisfaction that is only dispelled by their growing familiarity and applicability. The present book covers the history of formalism in mathematics from Euclid through the 20th century. It should be of interest to advanced mathematics students, anyone who teaches mathematics, and anyone generally interested in the foundation of mathematics.

This book introduces elementary probability through its history, eschewing the usual drill in favour of a discussion of the problems that shaped the field's development. Numerous excerpts from the literature, both from the pioneers in the field and its commentators, some given new English translations, pepper the exposition. First, for the reader without a background in the Calculus, it offers a brief intuitive explanation of some of the concepts behind the notation occasionally used in the text, and, for those with a stronger background, it gives more detailed presentations of some of the more technical results discussed in the text. Special features include two appendices on the graphing calculator and on mathematical topics. The former begins with a short course on the use of the calculator to raise the reader up from the beginner to a more advanced level, and then finishes with some simulations of probabilistic experiments on the the calculator. The mathematical appendix likewise serves a dual purpose. The book should be accessible to anyone taking or about to take a course in the Calculus, and certainly is accessible to anyone who has already had such a course. It should be of special interest to teachers, statisticians, or anyone who uses probability or is interested in the history of mathematics or science in general.

"The binomial theorem is usually quite rightly considered as one of the most important theorems in the whole of analysis." Thus wrote Bernard Bolzano in 1816 in introducing the first correct proof of Newton's generalisation of a century and a half earlier of a result familiar to us all from elementary algebra. Bolzano's appraisal may surprise the modern reader familiar only with the finite algebraic version of the Binomial Theorem involving positive integral exponents, and may also appear incongruous to one familiar with Newton's series for rational exponents. Yet his statement was a sound judgment back in the day. Here the story of the Binomial Theorem is presented in all its glory, from the early days in India, the Moslem world, and China as an essential tool for root extraction, through Newton's generalisation and its central role in infinite series expansions in the 17th and 18th centuries, and to its rigorous foundation in the 19th. The exposition is well-organised and fairly complete with all the necessary details, yet still readable and understandable for those with a limited mathematical background, say at the Calculus level or just below that. The present book, with its many citations from the literature, will be of interest to anyone concerned with the history or foundations of mathematics.

Growing out of a course in the history of mathematics given to school teachers, the present book covers a number of topics of elementary mathematics from both the mathematical and historical perspectives. Included are topics from geometry (, Napoleon's Theorem, trigonometry), recreational mathematics (the Pell equation, Fibonacci numbers), and computational mathematics (finding square roots, mathematical tables). Although written with the needs of the mathematics teacher in mind, the book can be read profitably by any high school graduate with a liking for mathematics.