The Secret Lives of Numbers

Informationen zum Autor Dr Kate Kitagawa is one of the world's leading experts on the history of mathematics. She earned a PhD from Princeton University, taught history at Harvard University and conducted research in the UK, Germany and South Africa. Her first book was a national bestseller in Japan, and she has been named one of the 100 most influential people in Japan by Nikkei Business . Klappentext A revisionist, completely accessible and radically inclusive history of maths 'Lively, satisfying, good at explaining difficult concepts' The Sunday Times Mathematics shapes almost everything we do. But despite its reputation as the study of fundamental truths, the stories we have been told about it are wrong. In The Secret Lives of Numbers , historian Kate Kitagawa and journalist Timothy Revell introduce readers to the mathematical boundary-smashers who have been erased by history because of their race, gender or nationality. From the brilliant Arabic scholars of the ninth-century House of Wisdom, and the pioneering African American mathematicians of the twentieth century, to the 'lady computers' around the world who revolutionised our knowledge of the night sky, we meet these fascinating trailblazers and see how they contributed to our global knowledge today. Along the way, the mathematics itself is explained extremely clearly, for example, calculus is described using the authors' home baking, as they pose the question: how much cake is in our cake? This revisionist, completely accessible and radically inclusive history of mathematics is as entertaining as it is important. Zusammenfassung A revisionist, completely accessible and radically inclusive history of maths 'Lively, satisfying, good at explaining difficult concepts' The Sunday Times Mathematics shapes almost everything we do. But despite its reputation as the study of fundamental truths, the stories we have been told about it are wrong. In The Secret Lives of Numbers , historian Kate Kitagawa and journalist Timothy Revell introduce readers to the mathematical boundary-smashers who have been erased by history because of their race, gender or nationality. From the brilliant Arabic scholars of the ninth-century House of Wisdom, and the pioneering African American mathematicians of the twentieth century, to the 'lady computers' around the world who revolutionised our knowledge of the night sky, we meet these fascinating trailblazers and see how they contributed to our global knowledge today. Along the way, the mathematics itself is explained extremely clearly, for example, calculus is described using the authors' home baking, as they pose the question: how much cake is in our cake? This revisionist, completely accessible and radically inclusive history of mathematics is as entertaining as it is important. ...

Auteur

Dr Kate Kitagawa is one of the world's leading experts on the history of mathematics. She earned a PhD from Princeton University, taught history at Harvard University and conducted research in the UK, Germany and South Africa. Her first book was a national bestseller in Japan, and she has been named one of the 100 most influential people in Japan by Nikkei Business.

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**A revisionist, completely accessible and radically inclusive history of maths

'Lively, satisfying, good at explaining difficult concepts' The Sunday Times

Mathematics shapes almost everything we do. But despite its reputation as the study of fundamental truths, the stories we have been told about it are wrong. In The Secret Lives of Numbers, historian Kate Kitagawa and journalist Timothy Revell introduce readers to the mathematical boundary-smashers who have been erased by history because of their race, gender or nationality.

From the brilliant Arabic scholars of the ninth-century House of Wisdom, and the pioneering African American mathematicians of the twentieth century, to the 'lady computers' around the world who revolutionised our knowledge of the night sky, we meet these fascinating trailblazers and see how they contributed to our global knowledge today.

Along the way, the mathematics itself is explained extremely clearly, for example, calculus is described using the authors' home baking, as they pose the question: how much cake is in our cake? This revisionist, completely accessible and radically inclusive history of mathematics is as entertaining as it is important.