[HN Gopher] History of Maths for Beginners
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History of Maths for Beginners
Author : kreig
Score : 90 points
Date : 2025-03-13 17:35 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thonyc.wordpress.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (thonyc.wordpress.com)
| jaymzcampbell wrote:
| If you're interested in this sort of stuff I highly recommend
| Stillwell's "Mathematics and it's History"
| (https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4419-6053-5) - it's
| a wonderful mix of quite low level explicit mathematics with
| contextual history; along with Stewarts "Concept of Mathematics"
| (https://archive.org/details/ConceptsofmodernmathematicsStewa...)
| .
|
| When you first study mathematics at undergraduate and early post-
| grad level there is a sense of being overwhelmed with how on
| earth anyone figured this out. When you read the messy history of
| maths, and understand it is an organic, growing field, you feel a
| little less like an imposter struggling to understand how anyone
| could've come up with this.
|
| Reading these books (primarily as a software engineer), made me
| feel better about not immediately getting certain concepts,
| because it's likely the people these theorems are named after
| didn't get it either, to begin with. They refined it, they
| collaborated (like a pull request almost) and eventually
| everything got very neatly packaged up into a set of theorems.
| Mathematics is rarely taught in that way, I wish more of the
| "human" aspect was part of the pedagogical process. I think it
| might temper some of the fear people have.
| WillAdams wrote:
| Famously, take note of Hilbert asking at a conference, "What is
| a Hilbert space?"
| pvg wrote:
| An oldie but goldie of the multi-brick/bathroom doorstop
| variety is Kline's _Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern
| Time_.
| bhasi wrote:
| What does multi brick/bathroom variety mean?
| pvg wrote:
| It means it's a big fat book well suited for browsing while
| on the can. It's a genre.
| teddyh wrote:
| Also _The World of Mathematics_ (1956) by James R. Newman.
| timthorn wrote:
| The Cambridge University History of Maths society is a
| fantastic resource - almost all the lectures are live streamed:
| https://hom.soc.srcf.net/
| andrewinardeer wrote:
| Sidenote today (or tomorrow depending where you are), on Friday
| 14th March the United Nations observes 'International Day of
| Mathematics'
|
| https://www.unesco.org/en/days/mathematics
| __rito__ wrote:
| When it comes to mathematical concepts- to understand everything
| broadly, connected to its context, and to understant "what's the
| point?", nothing tops this book- _Mathematics: Its Content,
| Methods and Meaning_ (3 Volumes in One) by Aleksandrov,
| Kolmogorov, and Lavrentev [0].
|
| [0]: https://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Content-Methods-
| Meaning-V...
| godelski wrote:
| I cannot recommend enough the podcast _Opinionated History of
| Mathematics_ by Viktor Blasjo
|
| What's great about it is that it helps put you in the shoes of
| the people solving the problems at these times. So it secretly
| teaches you how to solve problems. He also attacks some of the
| claims of some historians which are a bit obtuse. The arguments
| are really well founded and if you're wondering how ancients
| solved extremely complex math while never inventing the tools
| you'd think are needed to solve them, then this will answer a lot
| of that. I think it'll make you see a lot of problems in a
| different light. It also is just a lot of fun and can be pretty
| funny.
|
| https://intellectualmathematics.com/opinionated-history-of-m...
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