Review by Choice Review
Nahin (emer., electrical engineering, Univ. of New Hampshire) leads a very readable tour through the history of Euler's formula, e (raised to the i times pi power) + 1 = 0, with many interesting side trips to related material. As Nahin mentions, this formula is considered by mathematicians to be one of the most beautiful; mathematicians, scientists, and engineers know it also to be one of the most important. In discussing the history, Nahin touches on, among other things, the harmonic series, the Cayley-Hamilton theorem, the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, the concept of the square root of -1, Fermat's last theorem, the irrationality of pi and pi squared, and Fourier series. The text should be interesting to both mathematicians and nonmathematicians; mathematicians will see this as pleasant, light reading covering familiar material, while others will enjoy the clear presentation of classical results. There are a few places with some minor faults; e.g., referring to f(t) as "a function" while using f as the image of the map, but mathematicians can see past such issues, while nonmathematicians generally never notice. Many endnotes; references in endnotes. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. All levels. J. D. Fehribach Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
