For most mathematicians and many mathematical physicists the name Erich Kähler is strongly tied to important geometric notions such as Kähler metrics, Kähler manifolds and Kähler groups. They all go back to a paper of 14 pages written in 1932. This, however, is just a small part of Kähler's many outstanding achievements which cover an unusually wide area: From celestial mechanics he got into complex function theory, differential equations, analytic and complex geometry with differential forms, and then into his main topic, i.e. arithmetic geometry where he constructed a system of notions which is a precursor and, in large parts, equivalent to the now used system of Grothendieck and Dieudonné. His principal interest was in finding the unity in the variety of mathematical themes and establishing thus mathematics as a universal language. In this volume Kähler's mathematical papers are collected following a "Tribute to Herrn Erich Kähler" by S. S. Chern, an overview of Kähler's life data by A. Bohm and R. Berndt, and a Survey of his Mathematical Work by the editors. There are also comments and reports on the developments of the main topics of Kähler's work, starting by W. Neumann's paper on the topology of hypersurface singularities, J.-P. Bourguignon's report on Kähler geometry and, among others by Berndt, Bost, Deitmar, Ekeland, Kunz and Krieg, up to A. Nicolai's essay "Supersymmetry, Kähler geometry and Beyond". As Kähler's interest went beyond the realm of mathematics and mathematical physics, any picture of his work would be incomplete without touching his work reaching into other regions. So a short appendix reproduces three of his articles concerning his vision of mathematics as a universal Theme together with an essay by K. Maurin giving an "Approach to the philosophy of Erich Kähler".

Leon Battista Alberti was an outstanding polymath of the fifteenth century, alongside Piero della Francesca and before Leonardo da Vinci. While his contributions to architecture and the visual arts are well known and available in good English editions, and much of his literary and social writings are also available in English, his mathematical works are not well represented in readily available, accessible English editions have remained accessible only to specialists. The four treatises included here – Ludi matematici, De Componendis Cifris, Elementi di pittura and De lunularum quadratura – are extremely valuable in rounding out the portrait of this multitalented thinker. The treatises are presented in modern English translations, with commentary that is intended to make evident the depths of Alberti’s knowledge as well as address the treatises’ mathematical, historical and cultural context, their classical Greek roots, and their relationship to later works by Renaissance thinkers.

This magisterial annotated bibliography of the earliest mathematical works to be printed in the New World challenges long-held assumptions about the earliest examples of American mathematical endeavor. Bruce Stanley Burdick brings together mathematical writings from Mexico, Lima, and the English colonies of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York. The book provides important information such as author, printer, place of publication, and location of original copies of each of the works discussed. Burdick’s exhaustive research has unearthed numerous examples of books not previously cataloged as mathematical. While it was thought that no mathematical writings in English were printed in the Americas before 1703, Burdick gives scholars one of their first chances to discover Jacob Taylor’s 1697 Tenebrae, a treatise on solving triangles and other figures using basic trigonometry. He also goes beyond the English language to discuss works in Spanish and Latin, such as Alonso de la Vera Cruz's 1554 logic text, the Recognitio Summularum; a book on astrology by Enrico Martínez; books on the nature of comets by Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora and Eusebio Francisco Kino; and a 1676 almanac by Feliciana Ruiz, the first woman to produce a mathematical work in the Americas. Those fascinated by mathematics, its history, and its culture will note with interest that many of these works, including all of the earliest ones, are from Mexico, not from what is now the United States. As such, the book will challenge us to rethink the history of mathematics on the American continents.

This book presents the main research veins developed within the framework of the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic (ATD), a paradigm that originated in French didactics of mathematics. While a great number of publications on ATD are available in French and Spanish, Working with the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic in Mathematics Education is the first directed at English-speaking international audiences. Written and edited by leading researchers in ATD, the book covers all aspects of ATD theory and practice, including teaching applications. The chapters feature the most relevant and recent investigations presented at the 6th international conference on the ATD, offering a unique opportunity for an international audience interested in the study of mathematics teaching and learning to keep in touch with advances in educational research. The book is divided into four sections and the contributions explore key topics such as: The core concept of ‘praxeology’, including its development and functionalities The need for new teaching praxeologies in the paradigm of questioning the world The impact of ATD on the teaching profession and the education of teachers This is the second volume in the New Perspectives on Research in Mathematics Education. This comprehensive casebook is an indispensable resource for researchers, teachers and graduate students around the world.

The twentieth century is the period during which the history of Greek mathematics reached its greatest acme. Indeed, it is by no means exaggerated to say that Greek mathematics represents the unique field from the wider domain of the general history of science which was included in the research agenda of so many and so distinguished scholars, from so varied scientific communities (historians of science, historians of philosophy, mathematicians, philologists, philosophers of science, archeologists etc. ), while new scholarship of the highest quality continues to be produced. This volume includes 19 classic papers on the history of Greek mathematics that were published during the entire 20th century and affected significantly the state of the art of this field. It is divided into six self-contained sections, each one with its own editor, who had the responsibility for the selection of the papers that are republished in the section, and who wrote the introduction of the section. It constitutes a kind of a Reader book which is today, one century after the first publications of Tannery, Zeuthen, Heath and the other outstanding figures of the end of the 19th and the beg- ning of 20th century, rather timely in many respects.

This book describes Babbage's work on the design and implementation of the difference and analytical engines.

This new edition brings the fascinating and intriguing history of mathematics to life The Second Edition of this internationally acclaimed text has been thoroughly revised, updated, and reorganized to give readers a fresh perspective on the evolution of mathematics. Written by one of the world's leading experts on the history of mathematics, the book details the key historical developments in the field, providing an understanding and appreciation of how mathematics influences today's science, art, music, literature, and society. In the first edition, each chapter was devoted to a single culture. This Second Edition is organized by subject matter: a general survey of mathematics in many cultures, arithmetic, geometry, algebra, analysis, and mathematical inference. This new organization enables students to focus on one complete topic and, at the same time, compare how different cultures approached each topic. Many new photographs and diagrams have been added to this edition to enhance the presentation. The text is divided into seven parts: The World of Mathematics and the Mathematics of the World, including the origin and prehistory of mathematics, cultural surveys, and women mathematicians Numbers, including counting, calculation, ancient number theory, and numbers and number theory in modern mathematics Color Plates, illustrating the impact of mathematics on civilizations from Egypt to Japan to Mexico to modern Europe Space, including measurement, Euclidean geometry, post-Euclidean geometry, and modern geometrics Algebra, including problems leading to algebra, equations and methods, and modern algebra Analysis, including the calculus, real, and complex analysis Mathematical Inference, including probability and statistics, and logic and set theory As readers progress through the text, they learn about the evolution of each topic, how different cultures devised their own solutions, and how these solutions enabled the cultures to develop and progress. In addition, readers will meet some of the greatest mathematicians of the ages, who helped lay the groundwork for today's science and technology. The book's lively approach makes it appropriate for anyone interested in learning how the field of mathematics came to be what it is today. It can also serve as a textbook for undergraduate or graduate-level courses. An Instructor's Manual presenting detailed solutions to all the problems in the book is available upon request from the Wiley editorial department.