Journey Through Genius: The Great Theorems of Mathematics

by William Dunham

isbn: 014014739X
subject: Nonfiction, Mathematics, History
finished: 2/14/1998

From Euclid and Archimedes to the nondenumerability of the continuum, Journey Through Genius presents some of the most significant theorems in mathematics. Fortunately, proofs make up only a small part of the book; the rest is spent providing historical and biographical information to motivate the results, and discussing related work. I liked Journey Through Genius, and recommend it for several reasons: it presents real results in a readable way without assuming more background than college algebra, it puts theorems in context so that their importance can be seen, and it emphasizes that mathematics is creative rather than just a lot of rote learning.