This book is devoted to the study of human thought, its systemic structure, and the historical development of mathematics both as a product of thought and as a fascinating case analysis. After demonstrating that systems research constitutes the second dimension of modern science, the monograph discusses the yoyo model, a recent ground-breaking development of systems research, which has brought forward revolutionary applications of systems research...

"Winner of the 2007 Best Sci-Tech Books in Mathematics, Library Journal" "One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2007" William Byers is professor of mathematics at Concordia University in Montreal. He has published widely in mathematics journals. To many outsiders, mathematicians appear to think like computers, grimly grinding away with a strict formal logic and moving methodically--even algorithmically--from one black-and-white deduction...

As Albert Einstein lay on his death bed he asked for his glasses, his writing implements and his latest equations. He knew he was dying, yet he continued to work. In those final hours of his life, while fading in and out of consciousness, he was working on what he hoped would be the greatest work of all. It was a project of monumental complexity. It was a project that he hoped would unlock the mind of God.

This text remains one of the clearest, most authoritative and most accurate works in the field. The standard history treats hundreds of figures and schools instrumental in the development of mathematics, from the Phoenicians to such 19th-century giants as Grassman, Galois, and Riemann.

The abacus is as useful and efficient a machine, today as it was when it was first created centuries ago. Whether you're an expert in the latest computer technology or you're mastering arithmetic and word problems for the first time, it won't take long to learn the basics (and even the not-so-basics) of adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing on this ingenious and fun-to-use mathematical tool.

Volume 1 of 3-volume set containing complete English text of all 13 books of the Elements plus critical apparatus analyzing each definition, postulate, and proposition. Covers textual and linguistic matters; mathematical analyses of Euclid's ideas; commentators; refutations, supports, extrapolations, reinterpretations, and historical notes. Vol. 1 includes Introduction, Books I and II of Elements, lines, angles, intersections, etc.

One sun, two parents, three meals a day, four seasons, five fingers ... every child soon discovers that lots of things in life have an inherent number attached to them. Just as five individual fingers become something much more important and powerful when combined together in a hand, these numbers are often much more than a simple addition of their parts: they are intrinsically connected to the object, expressing a particular quality. In this readable...

Mathematics has come a long way indeed in the last 2,000 years, and this guide to modern mathematics traces the fascinating path from Euclid's Elements to contemporary concepts. No background beyond elementary algebra and plane geometry is necessary to understand and appreciate author Constance Reid's simple, direct explanations of the arithmetic of the infinite, the paradoxes of point sets, the "knotty" problems of topology, and "truth tables" of...

One of the first books to show Westerners the nature of Japanese mathematics, this survey highlights the leading features in the development of the wasan, the Japanese system of mathematics. Topics include the use of the soroban, or abacus; the application of sangi, or counting rods, to algebra; the discoveries of the 17th-century sage Seki Kowa; the yenri, or circle principle; the work of 18th-century geometer Ajima Chokuyen; and Wada Nei's contributions...

"Indeed, seeing that so much of Greek is mathematics, it is arguable that, if one would understand the Greek genius fully, it would be a good plan to begin with their geometry." The perspective that enabled Sir Thomas Heath to understand the Greek genius - deep intimacy with languages, literatures, philosophy, and all the sciences - brought him perhaps closer to his beloved subjects, and to their own ideal of educated men than is common or even possible...