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(More customer reviews)I pencil in the date that I finish reading each article in James R. Newman's four volume, "The World of Mathematics" After a good many years, I now find that I am more than halfway through Newman's remarkable collection that spans 2500 pages.
Newman described his work as "a small library of the literature of mathematics form A'hmose the Scribe to Albert Einstein, presented with commentaries and notes". The topics have been chosen with care. Newman preceded each article with a thoughtful commentary.
The individual articles are not abridgements, but are reprinted in their entirety. Some articles are short, some quite long, some are easy reading, some are difficult, but few are overwhelming.
I have not systematically read section by section. I find that I skip around. Often, after Newman introduces me to some mathematical topic, I find myself sidetracked, exploring other books and authors. But eventually I return to Newman, select another article, and begin the cycle again.
The Newman collection was published in 1956 as a boxed set that occasionally shows up in used bookstores. More recently, the four volumes have become available in soft cover (a Dover reprint) and can be purchased individually.
What makes Newman collection so remarkable? The answer is great original papers, great authors, and wide ranging topics.
Imagine reading Descartes on Cartesian coordinates, Whitehead on mathematical logic, Weyl on symmetry, Dedekind on irrational numbers, Russell on number theory, Heisenberg on the uncertainty principle, Turing on computer intelligence, Boole on set theory, and Eddington on group theory.
I enjoy the biographical and historical articles scattered throughout the four volumes. I especially liked Bell's article "Invariant Twins, Cayley and Sylvester", The Great Mathematicians" by Turnball, and G. H. Hardy's "A Mathematician's Apology".
Mathematicians try to define just what is mathematical thought and how a mathematician creates mathematics. Clifford writes about "The Exactness of Mathematical Laws", Von Neumann on "The Mathematician", Weyl on "Mathematical Way of Thinking", Poincare on "Mathematical Creation", Newman on "Godel's Proof", and Russell and Whitehead separately offer their thoughts.
This is the "World" of mathematics. Newman's assemblage also includes a fascinating, eclectic mix of articles that I have not encountered elsewhere like "How to Hunt a Submarine", "Durer as a Mathematician", "A Mathematical Approach to Ethics", "Geometry in the South Pacific", and "The Vice of Gambling and the Virtue of Insurance".
I have had great fun wandering through this four volume set from section to section, article to article. I assume that someday I will finally read the last article. I expect that I will simply begin again. It would be hard to say good-bye to Newman's collection.
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The World of MathematicsVol. 2 of a monumental 4-volume set covers mathematics and the physical world, mathematics and social science, and the laws of chance, with non-technical essays by and about scores of eminent mathematicians, economists, scientists, and others. Individual articles by Galileo Galilei, Gregor Mendel, Thomas Robert Malthus, and many more. Includes numerous figures.
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