This is a book about Mathematics but not a book of Mathematics. It is an attempt, between the serious and facetious, of conveying the idea that a mathematical thought is the result of different experiences, geographical and social factors. Even though it is not clear when Mathematics had started, it is evident that it had been used at an early stage of human history and by ancient Babylonians and Egyptians who have already developed a sophisticated corpus of mathematical items, which were the workhorse tools in engineering, navigation, trades and astronomy. The book sweeps across the mathematical minds of the Greek and Arab traditions, concepts by Assyro-Babylonians, and ancient Indian Vedic culture. The mathematical mind has modeled the evolution of societies and has been modeled by it. It is now in the midst of a great revolution and it is not clear where it will bring us. The current new epoch needs new mathematical tools and, above this, a new way of looking at Mathematics. This book tells the tale of what went on and what might go on.
Contents:
- Mixing Up Ancient and Modern
- Divisibility Criteria, Osculator Numbers and Roots
- Continued Fractions, Nested Radicals, Fibonacci, Pell ... and Transcendent Numbers
- 'Imaginary Numbers', Just an Unhappy Way of Saying
- Algebraic Equations: Vedic and Western Points of View
- The Two Souls of Mathematics and the Last of Vedas
Readership: From high schoolers to undergraduate and graduate students as well as general readers interested in the evolution of mathematical thoughts.
Key Features:
- This book provides a tour around Mathematics, spreading over two thousand years of its history, the elaborate conceptual thoughts of this subject and its relevant applications in a multitude of fields, across societies and eras
