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This book describes the historical development of the 'big ideas' in mathematics in an accessible and intuitive manner. In delivering this bird's-eye view of the history of mathematics, the author uses engaging diagrams and images to communicate complex concepts while also exploring the details of the main results.
List of contents
Part I Geometry. 1. The Beginnings. 2. Non-Euclidean Geometry. 3. Curves, surfaces, manifolds. 4. Fractal Geometry. Part II. Algebra. 5. The Beginnings. 6. Complex Numbers. 7. Abstract Algebra. 8. Linear Algebra. Part III. Calculus. 9. The Beginnings. 10. The Solar System. 11. Maxima and Minima. 12. PDE’s. Part IV. Topology. 13. The Beginnings. 14. Degree. 15. Homology. 16. Classification.
About the author
Thomas Waters was born and grew up in Dublin, Ireland, completing his undergraduate degree and PhD in Mathematics at Dublin City University. This was followed by a post-doc at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, then three years as a lecturer at the National University of Ireland, Galway, before becoming a lecturer at the University of Portsmouth, England, in 2010. During his time Thomas has lectured on very many different topics such as Linear Algebra, Differential Geometry, Knot Theory and Analytical Mechanics, to classes large and small, from one student to 300. His research interests go from General Relativity (stability of naked singularities) to Astrodynamics (solar sails in the 3-body problem) to Riemannian Geometry (integrability and the conjugate locus), but a unifying theme would be ordinary differential equations and periodic solutions. Thomas has two daughters, and when he is not being their taxi driver, he enjoys long walks in the woods and mountains.
Summary
This book describes the historical development of the ‘big ideas’ in mathematics in an accessible and intuitive manner. In delivering this bird's-eye view of the history of mathematics, the author uses engaging diagrams and images to communicate complex concepts while also exploring the details of the main results.
