The Heritage of Thales [Paperback]

The authors' novel approach to some interesting mathematical concepts - not normally taught in other courses - places them in a historical and philosophical setting. Although primarily intended for mathematics undergraduates, the book will also appeal to students in the sciences, humanities and education with a strong interest in this subject. The first part proceeds from about 1800 BC to 1800 AD, discussing, for example, the Renaissance method for solving cubic and quartic equations and providing rigorous elementary proof that certain geometrical problems posed by the ancient Greeks cannot be solved by ruler and compass alone. The second part presents some fundamental topics of interest from the past two centuries, including proof of G del's incompleteness theorem, together with a discussion of its implications.This is intended as a textbook on the history, philosophy and foundations of mathematics, primarily for students specializing in mathematics, but we also wish to welcome interested students from the sciences, humanities and education. We have attempted to give approximately equal treatment to the three subjects: history, philosophy and mathematics. History We must emphasize that this is not a scholarly account of the history of mathematics, but rather an attempt to teach some good mathematics in a historical context. Since neither of the authors is a professional historian, we have made liberal use of secondary sources. We have tried to give ref? cited facts and opinions. However, considering that this text erences for developed by repeated revisions from lecture notes of two courses given by one of us over a 25 year period, some attributions may have been lost. We could not resist retelling some amusing anecdotes, even when we suspect that they have no proven historical basis. As to the mathematicians listed in our account, we admit to being colour and gender blind; we have not attempted a balanced distribution of the mathematicians listed to meet today's slC”