Math Through the Ages: A Gentle History for Teachers and Others » (1st Edition)

History in the mathematics classroom; The history of mathematics in a large nutshell; Sketches:

1. Keeping count - writing whole numbers;
2. Reading and writing arithmetic - where the symbols came from;
3. Nothing becomes a number - the story of zero;
4. Broken numbers - writing fractions;
5. Something less than nothing? - negative numbers;
6. By tens and tenths - metric measurement;
7. Measuring the circle - the story of p;
8. The Cossic art - writing algebra with symbols;
9. Linear thinking - solving first degree equations;
10. A square and things - quadratic equations;
11. Intrigue in renaissance Italy - solving cubic equations;
12. A cheerful fact - the Pythagorean theorem;
13. A marvelous proof - Fermat's last theorem;
14. On beauty bare - Euclid's plane geometry;
15. In perfect shape - the Platonic solids;
16. Shapes by the numbers - coordinate geometry;
17. Impossible, imaginary useful - complex numbers;
18. Half is better - sine and cosine;
19. Strange new worlds - the non-Euclidean geometries;
20. In the eye of the beholder - projective geometry;
21. What's in a game - the start of probability theory;
22. Making sense of data - statistics becomes a science;
23. Machines that think - electronic computers;
24. Beyond counting - infinity and the theory of sets; What to read next; Bibliography; Index.