Mathematics for the Nonmathematician: Amazon.ca: Morris Kline: Books

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Erudite and entertaining overview follows development of mathematics from ancient Greeks, through Middle Ages and Renaissance to the present. Chapters focus on logic and mathematics, the number, the fundamental concept, differential calculus, the theory of probability, and much more. Exercises and problems.

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Customer Reviews

12 Reviews

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
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Average Customer Review

4.4 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)

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4.0 out of 5 stars An Interesting Book, April 3 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Mathematics for the Nonmathematician (Paperback)

As an overview and introduction to the history and conceptual development of mathematics, this is a very interesting book. As a primer for anyone seeking to learn or brush up on these principles, it falls a bit short.

I enjoy the history and Mr. Kline's development of this subject but I was looking more for an instructional book that would teach me these basics as it developed the ideas and history.

While it's an interesting book, it falls short as a teaching device because:
1. Answers are not provided for all exercises and I had trouble confirming my understanding.
2. Important theorems and axioms that should be memorized are hidden in the text and should be marked in bold or marked out by a similar method so the reader can recognize and review them more quickly.

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5.0 out of 5 stars The only math book that can be enjoyed w/your favorite latte, Jan 13 2004

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Marcus Abundus (Los Altos, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mathematics for the Nonmathematician (Paperback)

This book is truly an achievement. While not intended for true practitioners, the book is entertaining while though provoking at the same time. I take it with me to my favorite coffee shop sometimes just to open it randomly and read a few pages at a time. Not only does the author weave great historical moments with the progression of mathematical thought, he covers areas such as physics, art, music, and astronomy. He has also renewed my interest in taking the subject up again after many years. I have enrolled in a course in the Calculus based on this as well as other great math books.

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3.0 out of 5 stars good, but..., Sep 1 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Mathematics for the Nonmathematician (Paperback)

This book is good if you want to follow a kind of general cognitive & mental thread through world history from the Babylonians to the Greeks and from the Greeks to the present day (circa 1967?). You get a great overview of how the practice & conception of mathematics changed from each major civilization. However, as someone who has studied Classical literature & Classical languages, I can attest for a number of discrepencies that Kline makes about (especially) Greek civilization. It's almost as if everyone living in Greece at that time were thinking exactly the same things: all Greeks were rational--never mind the Eleusinian Mysteries, or the Delphic Oracle (both irrational & mystical cults). The Pythagorean cult was just as mystical as it was rational. He uses Greek art & architecture as a prime example--the Parthenon is his paragon of Greek rationality because it is presumably made of straight lines & geometric shapes. But it is obvious to anyone who has actually looked at the Parthenon that there is not one straight line on the damn thing. It's curved in every place imaginable in order to give the appearance of lightness. Granted the curvature of the base of the Parthenon models the curvature of the earth on a minor scale, but the non-linearity of the Parthenon complicates what Kline must have thought was a very simple case. I can take his mathematics seriously but I can't take the historical context very seriously when his examples are contradictory to the logic of his argument. Anyway, it's a good book which gives a good perspective about mathematics & geometry but beware of some of the proselytizing on behalf of deductive reasoning which ends up distorting the historical context.

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Most recent customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A big book about math
This book was originally written as a textbook (for a math-for-the-non-mathematician type course). It can be used as one (though as a textbook it's a bit dated), read... Read more

Published on Aug 30 2003 by Steve Stowers

4.0 out of 5 stars Good but more difficult then it sounds.
This book is great but it does get pretty technical at some points. Don't let that discourage you though, just skip the parts that are too technical, they won't distract you from... Read more

Published on July 12 2003 by Eric P. Medlock