- Subjects
- Published
-
Princeton, N.J. :
Princeton University Press
2012.
- Language
- English
- Main Author
- Physical Description
- 224 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 25 cm
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 219-221) and index.
- ISBN
- 9780691152820
- preface
- introduction: the abacist versus the algorist
- Part 1. equations of antiquity
- 1. Why we believe in arithmetic: the world's simplest equation
- 2. Resisting a new concept: the discovery of zero
- 3. The square of the hypotenuse: the Pythagorean theorem
- 4. The circle game: the discovery of ¿
- 5. From Zeno's paradoxes to the idea of infinity
- 6. A matter of leverage: laws of levers
- Part 2. equations in the age of exploration
- 7. The stammerer's secret: Cardano's formula
- 8. Order in the heavens: Kepler's laws of planetary motion
- 9. Writing for eternity: Fermat's Last Theorem
- 10. An unexplored continent: the fundamental theorem of calculus
- 11. Of apples, legends... and comets: Newton's laws
- 12. The great explorer: Euler's theorems
- Part 3. equations in a promethean age
- 13. The new algebra: Hamilton and quaternions
- 14. Two shooting stars: group theory
- 15. The geometry of whales and ants: non-Euclidean geometry
- 16. In primes we trust: the prime number theorem
- 17. The idea of spectra: Fourier series
- 18. A god's-eye view of light: Maxwell's equations
- Part 4. equations in our own time
- 19. The photoelectric effect: quanta and relativity
- 20. From a bad cigar to Westminster Abbey: Dirac's formula
- 21. The empire-builder: the Chern-Gauss-Bonnet equation
- 22. A little bit infinite: the Continuum Hypothesis
- 23. Theories of chaos: Lorenz equations
- 24. Taming the tiger: the Black-Scholes equation
- conclusion: what of the future?
- acknowledgments
- bibliography
- index