Unknown Quantity

Paperback | 1 October 2008 | Edition Number 1

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This is a brilliant and sparklingly original account of algebra through the ages, by one of mathematics' great popularizers: '"Unknown Quantity" buzzes with rivalries, frustrations and breakthroughs...A first-rate account that even algebraphobes will struggle to fault.' - "New Scientist".'Here is the story of algebra.' With this deceptively simple introduction, "Unknown Quantity" opens, thirty-eight centuries ago, at the time of Abraham and Isaac. In stylish and accessible prose, Derbyshire shows how the invention of algebra was more than the beginning of a specific discipline of mathematics; it was also the birth of a new way of thinking that altered, forever, the ways in which we see and understand our world.

Industry Reviews

"* 'Unknown Quantity buzzes with rivalries, frustrations and breakthroughs... A first-rate account that even algebraphobes will struggle to fault.' New Scientist * 'Derbyshire is a virtuoso at simplifying mathematics... This is more than an engaging history; it records an entire, perhaps endangered, way of thinking.' Simon Ings, Daily Telegraph * 'Everything a popular mathematics book should be: gentle, chatty, anecdotal and full of mind-aching equations... Worth reading twice.' Alexander Masters, Literary Review * 'Derbyshire offers a very real and very entertaining survey of the development of algebra.' Publishers Weekly (US)"

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