Numbers

Numbers: A Cultural History provides students with a compelling interdisciplinary view of the development of mathematics and its relationship to world cultures over 4500 years of human history.Mathematics is often referred to as a universal language and that is a fitting description. Many cultures have contributed to mathematics in fascinating ways but despite its universal character mathematics is also a human endeavor. It has played pivotal roles in societies at particular times; and it has influenced and been influenced by a wide range of ideas and institutions from commerce to philosophy. Ancient Egyptian views of mathematics for example are tied closely to engineering and agriculture. Some European Renaissance views on the other hand relate the study of number to that of the natural world.Numbers A Cultural History seeks to place the history of mathematics into a broad cultural context. While it treats mathematical material in detail it also relates that material to other subject matter: science philosophy navigation commerce religion art and architecture. It examines how mathematical thinking grows in specific cultural settings and how it has shaped those settings in turn. It also explores the movement of ideas between cultures and the evolution of modern mathematics and the quantitative data-driven world in which we live.