Episodes In The Mathematics Of Medieval Islam

Book Summary

From the reviews: The book is, in spite of the author's more modest claims, an introductory survey of main developments in those disciplines which were particularly important in Medieval Islamic mathematics...No knowledge of mathematics (or of the history of mathematics) beyond normal high-school level is presupposed, and everything required beyond that (be it Apollonian theory of conics or the definitions of celestial circles) is explained carefully and clearly. Scattered throughout the work are a number of lucid remarks on the character of Islamic mathematics or of mathematical work in general. The book will hence not only be an excellent textbook for the teaching of the history of mathematics but also for the liberal art aspect of mathematics teaching in general. - Jens HA, yrup, Mathematical Reviews ...as a textbook, this work is highly commendable...It is definitely the product of a skillful mathematician who has collected over the years a reasonably large number of interesting problems from medieval Arabic mathematics. None of them is pursued to exhaustion, but all of them arranged in such a way, together with accompanying exercises, so that they would engage an active mind and introduce a subject, which I am sure the author agrees with me is, at this stage, very difficult to introduce. - G.Saliba, Zentralblatt This book presents episodes from the mathematics of medieval Islam, work which has had a great impact on the development of mathematics. The author describes the subject in its proper historical context, referring to specific Arabic texts. Among the topics discussed are decimal arithmetic, plane and spherical trigonometry, algebra, interpolation and approximation of roots of equations. This book should be of great interest to historians of mathematics, as well as to students of mathematics. The presentation is readily accessible to anyone with a background in high school mathematics.

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