The Mathematical Universe

William Dunham

From the reviews of Journey Through Genius ...

"I have never come across a book like Dunham's ... a fascinating lingering over individual examples of ingenuity and insight!'

-Isaac Asimov

"...a very special math book, as good as any popular book on the subject since E. T. Bell wrote Men of Mathematics in 1937.11

-Los Angeles Times

"Recommended to all lively minded people, whether their interests lie mainly in arts or in science, as a vital cultural experience!'

-Ian Stewart, Naturemagazine

The Mathematical Universe offers incisive profiles of the great theorems, conundrums, disputes, and unsolved mysteries that have shaped the fascinating world of mathematics. With extraordinary clarity and wit, William Dunham takes you on a lively tour that scales the heights of mathematical achievement. Spanning five thousand years, Dunham explores distinctive subjects, from the earliest known records of arithmetic to the intriguing puzzles of infinite series and the quirky characteristics of irrational numbers. Throughout he provides surprising and amusing anecdotes from the lives of the great masters, such as the flamboyant and irreverent Bertrand Russell, the bickering but brilliant Bernoulli brothers, and the intuitive genius Sofia Kovalevskaia. Accessible to all readers with a basic knowledge of algebra and geometry, this stimulating excursion provides a unique experience of the astonishing power and majesty of the mathematician's art.

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