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A book about numbers sounds rather dull. This one is not. Instead it is a lively story about one thread of mathematics-the concept of "number" told by eight authors and organized into a historical narrative that leads the reader from ancient Egypt to the late twentieth century. It is a story that begins with some of the simplest ideas of mathematics and ends with some of the most complex. It is a story that mathematicians, both amateur and professional, ought to know. Why write about numbers? Mathematicians have always found it diffi cult to develop broad perspective about their subject. While we each view our specialty as having roots in the past, and sometimes having connec tions to other specialties in the present, we seldom see the panorama of mathematical development over thousands of years. Numbers attempts to give that broad perspective, from hieroglyphs to K-theory, from Dedekind cuts to nonstandard analysis.
Sommario
A. From the Natural Numbers, to the Complex Numbers, to the p-adics.- 1. Natural Numbers, Integers, and Rational Numbers.- 2. Real Numbers.- 3. Complex Numbers.- 4. The Fundamental Theorem of Algebr.- 5. What is ??.- 6. The p-Adic Numbers.- B. Real Division Algebras.- Repertory. Basic Concepts from the Theory of Algebras.- 7. Hamilton's Quaternions.- 8. The Isomorphism Theorems of FROBENIUS, HOPF and GELFAND-MAZUR.- 9. CAYLEY Numbers or Alternative Division Algebras.- 10. Composition Algebras. HURWITZ's Theorem-Vector-Product Algebras.- 11. Division Algebras and Topology.- C. Infinitesimals, Games, and Sets.- 12. Nonsiandard Analysis.- 13. Numbers and Games.- 14. Set Theory and Mathematics.- Name Index.- Portraits of Famous Mathematicians.
Info autore
Heinz-Dieter Ebbinghaus is Professor Emeritus at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Freiburg. His work spans fields in logic, such as model theory and set theory, and includes historical aspects.
Jörg Flum is Professor Emeritus at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Freiburg. His research interests include mathematical logic, finite model theory, and parameterized complexity theory.
Wolfgang Thomas is Professor Emeritus at the Computer Science Department of RWTH Aachen University. His research interests focus on logic in computer science, in particular logical aspects of automata theory.
