Kaslov reviewed Number by Tobias Dantzig
Review of 'Number' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
This book may be old, but its a classic. The book was written in the 30s, author made his last edits in the 50s and my edition is from the 90s. This might tell you that the book is still quite relevant and a landmark for the history of the number from the humble integer to the mind boggling infinities and with it a short history of mathematics, phylosophy and science. If you are researching these topics this is where you start.
Considering that this book mostly deals with the history of the concept of number, it avoids going too deep into mathematical proofs and instead tries to tell you a story, so that it could be enjoyed by everyone. Of course there must be explanations for some of these proofs and the Author has done an admirable job explaining it, but knowing some math would help. Everyone who has …
This book may be old, but its a classic. The book was written in the 30s, author made his last edits in the 50s and my edition is from the 90s. This might tell you that the book is still quite relevant and a landmark for the history of the number from the humble integer to the mind boggling infinities and with it a short history of mathematics, phylosophy and science. If you are researching these topics this is where you start.
Considering that this book mostly deals with the history of the concept of number, it avoids going too deep into mathematical proofs and instead tries to tell you a story, so that it could be enjoyed by everyone. Of course there must be explanations for some of these proofs and the Author has done an admirable job explaining it, but knowing some math would help. Everyone who has read a math textbook or other popular books on mathematics has seen how difficult it is to express mathematics in words. I personally would've given up a long time ago and just left pages and pages of pure math and be done with it.
Now because the book is so old you could totally skip his chapter of "Future problems", because they are all solved, but still interesting to take a look at just to see some of these math problems and research their solutions. And finally the editors thankfully added some book recommendations for further reading, those are on my to read list now of course.
