Hermann Günther Graßmann was one of the most remarkable personalities in 19th-century science. A "small-town genius", he developed a groundbreaking n-dimensional algebra of space and contributed to a revolution in the understanding of mathematics. His work fascinated great mathematicians such as W. R. Hamilton, J. W. Gibbs and A. N. Whitehead. This intellectual biography traces Graßmann’s steps towards scientific brilliance by untangling a complicated web of influences: the force of unsolved problems in mathematics, Friedrich Schleiermacher’s Dialectic, German Romanticism and life in 19th-century Prussia. The book also introduces the reader to the details of Graßmann’s mathematical work without neglecting his achievements in Sanskrit philology and physics. And, for the first time, it makes many original sources accessible to the English-language reader.

Since its publication, C.F. Gauss's Disquisitiones Arithmeticae (1801) has acquired an almost mythical reputation, standing as an ideal of exposition in notation, problems and methods; as a model of organisation and theory building; and as a source of mathematical inspiration. Eighteen authors - mathematicians, historians, philosophers - have collaborated in this volume to assess the impact of the Disquisitiones, in the two centuries since its publication.

Analysis as an independent subject was created as part of the scientific revolution in the seventeenth century. Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Fermat, Huygens, Newton, and Leibniz, to name but a few, contributed to its genesis. Since the end of the seventeenth century, the historical progress of mathematical analysis has displayed unique vitality and momentum. No other mathematical field has so profoundly influenced the development of modern scientific thinking. Describing this multidimensional historical development requires an in-depth discussion which includes a reconstruction of general trends and an examination of the specific problems. This volume is designed as a collective work of authors who are proven experts in the history of mathematics. It clarifies the conceptual change that analysis underwent during its development while elucidating the influence of specific applications and describing the relevance of biographical and philosophical backgrounds. The first ten chapters of the book outline chronological development and the last three chapters survey the history of differential equations, the calculus of variations, and functional analysis. Special features are a separate chapter on the development of the theory of complex functions in the nineteenth century and two chapters on the influence of physics on analysis. One is about the origins of analytical mechanics, and one treats the development of boundary-value problems of mathematical physics (especially potential theory) in the nineteenth century. The book presents an accurate and very readable account of the history of analysis. Each chapter provides a comprehensive bibliography. Mathematical examples have been carefully chosen so that readers with a modest background in mathematics can follow them. It is suitable for mathematical historians and a general mathematical audience.

Mathematical Perspectives: Essays on Mathematics and its Historical Development is a collection of 13 biographical essays on the historical advances of science. This collection is originally meant to comprise an issue of the journal Historia Mathematica in honor of Professor Kurt R. Biermann's 60th birthday. This 12-chapter text includes essays on studies and commentaries on the problem of "figures of equal perimeter by various authors in antiquity, including Zenodorus, Theon, and Pappus. Other essays explore the comparison of the areas of polygons with equal perimeter; the concept of function; history of mathematics; the development of mathematical physics in France; and the history of Logicism and Formalism. The remaining chapters deal with essays on an early version of Gauss' Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, ideal numbers, a mathematical-philosophilica theory of probability, and historical examples of problem of number sequence interpolation. This book will be of value to mathematicians, historians, and researchers.

Algebra, as a subdiscipline of mathematics, arguably has a history going back some 4000 years to ancient Mesopotamia. The history, however, of what is recognized today as high school algebra is much shorter, extending back to the sixteenth century, while the history of what practicing mathematicians call "modern algebra" is even shorter still. The present volume provides a glimpse into the complicated and often convoluted history of this latter conception of algebra by juxtaposing twelve episodes in the evolution of modern algebra from the early nineteenth-century work of Charles Babbage on functional equations to Alexandre Grothendieck's mid-twentieth-century metaphor of a ``rising sea'' in his categorical approach to algebraic geometry. In addition to considering the technical development of various aspects of algebraic thought, the historians of modern algebra whose work is united in this volume explore such themes as the changing aims and organization of the subject as well as the often complex lines of mathematical communication within and across national boundaries. Among the specific algebraic ideas considered are the concept of divisibility and the introduction of non-commutative algebras into the study of number theory and the emergence of algebraic geometry in the twentieth century. The resulting volume is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of modern mathematics in general and modern algebra in particular. It will be of particular interest to mathematicians and historians of mathematics.

The History of Modern Mathematics, Volume I: Ideas and their Reception documents the proceedings of the Symposium on the History of Modern Mathematics held at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York on June 20-24, 1989. This book is concerned with the emergence and reception of major ideas in fields that range from foundations and set theory, algebra and invariant theory, and number theory to differential geometry, projective and algebraic geometry, line geometry, and transformation groups. Other topics include the theory of reception for the history of mathematics and British synthetic vs. French analytic styles of algebra in the early American Republic. The early geometrical works of Sophus Lie and Felix Klein, background to Gergonne's treatment of duality, and algebraic geometry in the late 19th century are also elaborated. This volume is intended for students and researchers interested in developments in pure mathematics.

Classification and Examples of Differential Equations and their Applications is the sixth book within Ordinary Differential Equations with Applications to Trajectories and Vibrations, Six-volume Set. As a set, they are the fourth volume in the series Mathematics and Physics Applied to Science and Technology. This sixth book consists of one chapter (chapter 10 of the set). It contains 20 examples related to the preceding five books and chapters 1 to 9 of the set. It includes two recollections: the first with a classification of differential equations into 500 standards and the second with a list of 500 applications. The ordinary differential equations are classified in 500 standards concerning methods of solution and related properties, including: (i) linear differential equations with constant or homogeneous coefficients and finite difference equations; (ii) linear and non-linear single differential equations and simultaneous systems; (iii) existence, unicity and other properties; (iv) derivation of general, particular, special, analytic, regular, irregular, and normal integrals; (v) linear differential equations with variable coefficients including known and new special functions. The theory of differential equations is applied to the detailed solution of 500 physical and engineering problems including: (i) one- and multidimensional oscillators, with damping or amplification, with non-resonant or resonant forcing; (ii) single, non-linear, and parametric resonance; (iii) bifurcations and chaotic dynamical systems; (iv) longitudinal and transversal deformations and buckling of bars, beams, and plates; (v) trajectories of particles; (vi) oscillations and waves in non-uniform media, ducts, and wave guides. Provides detailed solution of examples of differential equations of the types covered in tomes l-5 of the set (Ordinary Differential Equations with Applications to Trajectories and Vibrations, Six -volume Set) Includes physical and engineering problems that extend those presented in the tomes 1-6 (Ordinary Differential Equations with Applications to Trajectories and Vibrations, Six-volume Set) Includes a classification of ordinary differential equations and their properties into 500 standards that can serve as a look-up table of methods of solution Covers a recollection of 500 physical and engineering problems and sub-cases that involve the solution of differential equations Presents the problems used as examples including formulation, solution, and interpretation of results

What is algebra? For some, it is an abstract language of x's and y’s. For mathematics majors and professional mathematicians, it is a world of axiomatically defined constructs like groups, rings, and fields. Taming the Unknown considers how these two seemingly different types of algebra evolved and how they relate. Victor Katz and Karen Parshall explore the history of algebra, from its roots in the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, China, and India, through its development in the medieval Islamic world and medieval and early modern Europe, to its modern form in the early twentieth century. Defining algebra originally as a collection of techniques for determining unknowns, the authors trace the development of these techniques from geometric beginnings in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia and classical Greece. They show how similar problems were tackled in Alexandrian Greece, in China, and in India, then look at how medieval Islamic scholars shifted to an algorithmic stage, which was further developed by medieval and early modern European mathematicians. With the introduction of a flexible and operative symbolism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, algebra entered into a dynamic period characterized by the analytic geometry that could evaluate curves represented by equations in two variables, thereby solving problems in the physics of motion. This new symbolism freed mathematicians to study equations of degrees higher than two and three, ultimately leading to the present abstract era. Taming the Unknown follows algebra’s remarkable growth through different epochs around the globe.