A History of Mathematical Notations (Dover Books on MaTHEMA 1.4tics) Paperback – Illustrated, 28 Mar. 2003

ironically the ebook isnt even formatted properly for mathematical notation for a start. Then theres the pages upon pages upon pages of footnotes (over a thousand plonked at the end of one chapter take up 10% of the book). Feels like its been composed by an obsessive compulsive that has no interest/capacity to write anything readable.this isnt really a book on the history of notation, its an extremely derailed exhaustive/exhausting set of notes thats practically unreadable. this is more like a complete reference/set of notes that someone who’s writing a doctorate on math symbols might find useful as a reference source.not recommended for anyone looking for an interesting read. If i were editing this book id take 90% of the content and place it into the appendix and the ask the author to write something people could actually read and make sense of.

I've had this book for decades now - one of my top ten all time books.

The only publisher I know that uses fax machines as printers. It is a shame they consistently get public domain books, and print which such a bad quality. Specially in a book like this, the intent is to appreciate the notation. At the very minimum I would expect the publisher to acquire a better quality scan of the books they publish.

This is a true gold-mine of information on origins of mathematical notations. Whenever I want to innovate in notations, I want to know how and why the traditional notation was chosen. This book tells me that. Then I can think about whether my new notation fits its purpose better than the old one.In my opinion, the importance of notations is very much underestimated. Anyone who has spent a lot of time reading old mathematics literature, going back hundreds of years or more, knows that the principal difficulty with reading old texts is the lack of good notation to express the ideas. Even books written 50 years ago are often painfully difficult to read because of their ill-chosen notations. Some subjects have surged forward when notations have improved, while others have languished due to the difficulty of expressing ideas in poor notations. When you upgrade old notations to new requirements, I think it's important to understand their history first.Another way to think of the importance of notations is that they give meaning to symbols in the same way definitions give meaning to words and phrases. But definitions serve to highlight the concepts which are most important in a mathematical topic. We define concepts because they are of enduring importance. And notations likewise highlight the most important concepts. But since a mathematical formula is a kind of picture, it is interpreted more by pictorial perception than linguistic perception. In other words, formulas are more like diagrams than text. We take (or should take) a great interest in the history of concepts. So we should also take a great interest in the history of notations!The only drawback of this book is the page numbering because it is "two volumes in one". The index for volume I is on pages 433-451 of Volume 1, in the middle of the book! So you really have to keep a permanent book-mark there for index look-up. Many times I have looked up things in the Volume 2 index at the back of the book, forgetting about the separate Volume 1 index.As far as I know, this is the only encyclopedic history of mathematical notations. Many books do give a few snippets of history about notations here and there. But this book is quite comprehensive and authoritative, up until the early 20th century anyway.

I love math and like history. What could be better than a history of math book? Not this book. Remember that professor that you had in college with the monotone voice that drones on forever and ever? He must have written this book. I'm sure it has fantastic insight, but I can't stay awake long enough to find it.

Recommend for anyone with an interest in mathematics. I have found a deeper appreciation for the methods of communicating mathematical ideas and thoughts. The ability to progress deeper into mathematics, and discover new, more powerful ways to do mathematics can be limited by the notation one uses. One realizes that math is a language that is evolving, which in turn can allow greater ease of expression.

This book is very interesting and it was just what I was looking for. (I was working on a project over the history of algebraic expressions) The book contains images that come from primary sources and it is well written.