Auf ein Miniaturbild klicken, um zu Google Books zu gelangen.
Lädt ... The Hindu-Arabic Numeralsvon David Eugene SMITH, Louis Charles Karpinski
Keine Lädt ...
Melde dich bei LibraryThing an um herauszufinden, ob du dieses Buch mögen würdest. Keine aktuelle Diskussion zu diesem Buch. keine Rezensionen | Rezension hinzufügen
Gehört zu Verlagsreihen
Two distinguished mathematicians unite many fragmentary narrations in this concise history of the origin and development of Hindu-Arabic numerals. They recount the labors of scholars who studied the subject in different parts of the world, assess the historical testimony, and draw conclusions from the evidence. 1911 edition. Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
Aktuelle DiskussionenKeineBeliebte Umschlagbilder
Google Books — Lädt ... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)513.5Natural sciences and mathematics Mathematics Arithmetic Numeration SystemsKlassifikation der Library of Congress [LCC] (USA)BewertungDurchschnitt:
Bist das du?Werde ein LibraryThing-Autor. |
In terms of writing, the book is, as one would expect from a 19th-century educated scholar, written with care, without flowery sentences, and with appropriate footnotes. (One note -- Smith does assume a working knowledge of Latin, French, and German and is happy to quote long passages in these languages mainly in his footnotes.) Smith has included many reproductions of early numbers and references to texts, both printed and manuscript, to justify his conclusions. Anyone wishing to study the history of numbers could easily draw up a long reading list from his footnotes. This is THE book to start with, if one wants a scholarly treatment.
There were two 'problems' I had with this book. First, it was published in 1911, so much of the secondary material referred to was published in the 1890's or earlier. I do wonder what, if any, new work has been done in this field.
Second, I had assumed that this book would trace the Hindu-Arabic numerals from their origin to their present form. Smith does as good a job as can be done in defending his theory of their origin. He traces the numerals to about the 12th century and then skims over any later development. I understand that history from the 13th century onward is a bit out of his normal period, but I was hoping of a bit better treatment.
Overall, this is a great starting point for studying where the numerals we use came from. I wish I had read this several years ago! ( )