Peter S. Rudman

A physicist explores the history of mathematics among the Babylonians and Egyptians, showing how their scribes in the era from 2000 to 1600 BCE used visualizations of plane geometric figures to invent geometric algebra, even solving problems that we now do by quadratic algebra. Rudman traces the ...

In this fascinating discussion of ancient mathematics, author Peter Rudman does not just chronicle the archeological record of what mathematics was done; he digs deeper into the more important question of why it was done in a particular way. Why did the Egyptians use a bizarre method of expressin...