About this title: The story of pi has been told many times, both in scholarly works and in popular books. But its close relative, the number e, has fared less well. Despite the central role it plays in mathematics, its history has never before been written for a general audience. The present work fills this gap. Geared to the reader with only a modest background in mathematics, the book describes the story of e from a human as well as a mathematical perspective. In a sense, it is the story of an entire period in the history of mathematics, from the early 17th to the late 19th century, with the invention of ...
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Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780691058542ISBN:0691058547
Description: Good. Standard used condition. May have light reading or storage wear. All orders processed within 2 business days. Ships from Foxboro MA. read more
Description: Good. 1998-Paperback----Used-Good-Hall Street Books proudly ships from Brooklyn, NY. All orders are processed and shipped within 24 hours, M-F. 100% money back No-Worry guarantee with expedited delivery and delivery confirmation available. read more
Edition: Illustrated.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780691058542ISBN:0691058547
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Very Good-Like New. Clean, tight, square. Text pages & photo illustrations clear, bright and unmarked. No highlightings or underlinings. All items ships within 24 Hours. Thanks for your purchase! Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 227 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Shelf 935 6 by 9 inches. Paperback published by Princeton Paperbacks 1994. Bookstore stamp on foot edge. Sm amt of highlighting/underlining. Corner bumps. Binding firm. Good condition. read more
Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Edition: Illustrated.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780691058542ISBN:0691058547
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Spine straight w/o creases, binding tight, no reader/remainder/library marks, slight cover curl, pgs flat w/ sharp corners, very slight shelf wear. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 227 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. Photos or additional information on this item available on request. Orders/e-mail responses processed daily. Please check our feedback. read more
Edition: Illustrated.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780691058542ISBN:0691058547
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 248 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. Will ship 1-2 business days. read more
Edition: Illustrated.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780691058542ISBN:0691058547
Description: New. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 248 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. BRAND NEW NEVER OPENED read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN-13:9780691058542ISBN:0691058547
Description: New with no dust jacket. 9780691058542. No defects, New and unread. The story of the transcendental number e, for all those who love mathematics. Trade PB. 8vo-8" to 9" tall. 227 pages. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr
Date Published: 2009-02-08
ISBN-13:9780691141343ISBN:0691141347
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780691141343. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780691141343ISBN:0691141347
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 227 p. Contains: Illustrations. Princeton Science Library (Paperback). Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Univ. PRESSES OF CALIFORNIA, COLUMBIA AND PRINCETON Country = UNITED STATES
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780691141343ISBN:0691141347
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 248 pages. The interest earned on a bank account, the arrangement of seeds in a sunflower, and the shape of the gateway arch in st louis are all intimately connected with the mysterious number e. this title presents a history that portrays the curious characters and the elegant mathematics that lie behind the number. 6 halftones. 74 line illus. (Paperback) read more
"really well presented overview of how we came to learn about and appreciate e. some highlights:
* history of logarithms * description of bernoulli's logarithmic spiral - showing how the spiral can be used to represent musical notes * explanation of hyperbolic sines and cosines
i wish the book had gone into a little more detail about the relationship of e with complex numbers."
"This one didn't really work for me. It wasn't really readable as a story -- the math was too dense, the narrative too thin. On the other hand, there wasn't much math that I didn't already know from teaching first-year calculus a bunch of times.
Still, it was interesting reading Maor's summary of the whole Newton/Liebniz kerfuffle (of course I knew there had been one, but I'd never read about it in detail before). And it was neat seeing how Newton's notation worked. Plus, the stuff about the invention of logarithms was cool."
"Maor's account of the place of e, the base of the natural logarithms, in the history of mathematics provides a peek inside a mathematician's brain. More connected by mathematical ideas than by chronology or the usual social, cultural, economic, or political themes taken up by historians, Maor's book opened vistas in the calculus I did not see when I first ploddingly confronted derivatives and integrals some decades ago. He thoroughly covers the differing views of Newton and Leibniz as they developed the calculus. He discusses some of the special characteristics of e revealed in the fact that the exponential function is its own derivative. He shows how e appeared in nature and the arts - musical scales, the spiral mirablis, a hanging chain, the parabolic arc of a projectile, the Gateway Arch. More than other of recent books focused on a particular number, Maor explores the mathematics of e with a mathematician's interest. But metaphysics creeps in as it seems to in discursive accounts of mathematical developments and achievements. Numbers - in particular special numbers like e - have been imbued with mystical connections to larger or hidden things. This account of e raises the questions again, "What is this language of numbers that humans have developed and how is this language linked to the world 'out there'?" In one sense, the number e, like its more famous companion pi, turns out to be not only an irrational number but also non-algebraic - not a solution (root) of a polynomial equation. Such numbers are called transcendental, meaning merely 'beyond algebraic'. In the end, Maor's story of e is an account of human activity in a world of patterns. And it is an excellent companion to a course in calculus."
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