1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910966247403321

Autore

Aaboe Asger

Titolo

Episodes from the early history of mathematics / / by Asger Aaboe

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Washington, D.C., : Mathematical Association of America, 1998

ISBN

0-88385-928-9

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (x, 133 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Collana

Anneli Lax New Mathematical Library ; ; 13

Disciplina

510.901

Soggetti

Mathematics - History

Mathematics, Ancient

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 02 Oct 2015).

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references.

Nota di contenuto

Babylonian mathematics -- Early Greek mathematics and Euclid's construction of the regular pentagon -- Three samples of Archimedean mathematics -- Ptolemy's construction of a trigonometric table.

Sommario/riassunto

Among other things, Aaboe shows us how the Babylonians did calculations, how Euclid proved that there are infinitely many primes, how Ptolemy constructed a trigonometric table in his Almagest, and how Archimedes trisected the angle. Some of the topics may be familiar to the reader, while others will seem surprising or be new.