Introducing Mathematics

Introducing Graphic Guides

by Ziauddin Sardar, Borin Van Loon (Contributor)

Contrary to most people's perseptions of math as a soulless world of gray individuals, in reality the course of mathematics reveal frequent dramatic conceptual changes. Here is an introduction to the subject that highlights the major turning points.

Genres: Mathematics, Nonfiction, Science, History, Stem, Philosophy, Graphic Novels

176 pages, Paperback

First published March 8, 1995

About the author

Ziauddin Sardar has written or edited 45 books over a period of 30 years, many with his long-time co-author Merryl Wyn Davies. Recent titles include Balti Britain: a Journey Through the British Asian Experience (Granta, 2008); and How Do You Know: Reading Ziauddin Sardar on Islam, Science and Cultural Relations (Pluto, 2006). The first volume of his memoirs is Desperately Seeking Paradise: Journeys of a Sceptical Muslim (Granta, 2006). His recent television work includes a 90-minute documentary for the BBC in 2006 called 'Battle for Islam'. Sardar's online work includes a year-long blog on the Qur'an published in 2008 by The Guardian newspaper.
Sardar is a Visiting Professor of Postcolonial Studies in the Department of Arts Policy and Management at City University London and is Editor of the forecasting and planning journal, Futures. He is also a member of the UK Commission on Equality and Human Rights. His journalism appears most often in The Guardian and The Observer, as well as the UK weekly magazine, New Statesman. In the 1980s, he was among the founders of Inquiry, a magazine of ideas and policy focusing on Muslim countries. His early career includes working as a science correspondent for Nature and New Scientist magazines and as a reporter for London Weekend Television.
>>(from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziauddin... )<<
--
*You can know more from his own site:
http://www.ziauddinsardar.com/Biograp...

Reviews

[Esraa Gibreen · Rating 3 out of 5]

أولى تجاربي مع سلسلة أقدم لك وأحببت أنا أبدأها بمجال دراستي. الكتاب بسيط جدا حتى لغير المتخصصين. يبدأ بتاريخ الرياضيات في الحضارات القديمة من طرق العد واختراع الأرقام... ويعرض الإسهامات البارزة في تاريخ الرياضيات مثل اختراع التفاضل والتكامل من قِبل نيوتن وليبنتز كل منهما بشكل منفصل، ومثل مفهوم المالانهاية في الرياضيات... ويتحدث بإيجاز عن بعض فروع الرياضيات مثل الإحصاء والطبولوجي ونظرية الأعداد.

هذا الكتاب مقارنة بكتاب (تاريخ الرياضيات) من سلسلة مقدمة قصيرة جدا يعتبر أوسع زاوية في طريقة طرح واختيار الموضوعات، ولكن كتاب مقدمة قصيرة جدا أكثر تركيزا وكثافة وفي رأيي الشخصي أفضل.

[Simon Pressinger]

I am genuinely astonished at how quickly my brain shuts down or wanders off when I'm looking at even the simplest of equations. The book started well, but after the 20th page or so, concepts like powers, special numbers, linear and quadratic equations lost me quickly. Some of it could have been made a lot clearer, I think -- at least from a writer's viewpoint. Or maybe they need to assume their reader knows jackshit about maths. Or maybe this reader just can't wrap his head around something as perfectly straight forward as, "Linear equations only have variables to the power of one -- such as the equation 5x + 8 = 23." Even with the context explained, I think it's the sheer abstraction of this type of thing that loses me. I'll stick to my universal truths being acknowledged for now, thanks very much. ... I mean ... dammit man, I tried. I really did try! And there are some fantastic facts to illustrate the general historical development of mathematics (along with the very real illustrations themselves). But the nitty gritty, hedgy, sloppy quagmire stuff that is the maths itself is simply beyond me.

[Ramy · Rating 4 out of 5]

كتاب ممتاز ... يجرى بصورة بانورامية على موضوعات الرياضيات
عبر التسلسل الزمانى - المكانى
نظرية كذا اخترعها فلان الصينى سنة كذا
نظرية كذا تكملة على ما بناه الصينى اخترعها العربي المسلم فلان سنة كذا

الرياضيات التى درسناها فى المدرسة عبر الابتدائى - الاعدادى - الثانوى
يمكنك ان تقرا عنها فى كتابيّ
ما العدد؟
الرياضيات في حياتنا

الكتاب هنا على الرغم من صغره النسبي
الا انه تناول ايضا عدة موضوعات زيادة
رياضيات الجامعة
جعلنى اثناء كل موضوع
اذهب لل youtube
للبحث عن فيديو مبسط يشرح تفسير الاثبات الفلاني
او القانون العلاني
او النظرية الفلانية
و هناك الكثير منهم ب الفعل قصيرو الوقت عظيمو النفع كبيرو المتعة
هل تعلم ان قاعدة فيثاغورس هناك 350 اثبات مختلف لها ؟

و فى النهاية يفضح و بصراحة متناهية عنصرية
الرياضيات الاوروبية
حينما تحاول ان تصبغ كل مكتشفات و استنتاجات الحضارات السابقة "صينية او اسلامية"
و تعيد اكتشافها و تسميتها للعالم الاوروبي
علما ب ان المبدأ موجود منذ عشرات او مئات السنين بالفعل

يعيب الكتاب قلة الكتابة و كثرة الصور حتى لو ليست بذات صلة للموضوع
ستجد صورتىن لشخصين بيتكرروا فى اغلب صور صفحات الكتاب
تسألت من هما لحد ما عرفت انهم مؤلفي الكتاب :)

و لكنه كتاب ممتاز و موسوعي للتعلم عن الرياضيات -و ليس الرياضيات نفسها بدقة و بالتفصيل -و مفاهيمها و تطورها و علماؤها و تطور موضوعاتها

الكتاب القادم : شخصيات حية من الأغاني

[Sally Sugarman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This won’t make me a mathematician, but it provides a useful history of how mathematics developed and what are some of its limitations. In telling the story, the authors go from county to country, showing how math developed in Europe, China, India, and Islamic countries and among Indigenous people. They show the tasks that math was to solve and the different symbols that arose as a way of keeping a record. There was a need to count but there was also a need to calculate. The development of prime numbers and the decimal system arising from our ten fingers. There are informative sections on probability and statistics. There is also a problem of the infinite which seems to be a mathematical paradox. This seems to be an unresolved problem for future mathematicians. The many aspects of mathematics are challenging. The end of the book talks about the ethnocentrisim of European math where they ignore the contributions of other countries or adopt them as their own. There is also the question of gender and the exclusion of women from the field. However, many women have shown their skills at math in some of the code breakers both in World War II and in the space programs. As always, there is an annotated bibliography that makes you want to read further. The images of the authors were useful guides throughout the books.

[Sleepless Dreamer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Damn, I have 2 minutes to write this review before I get back to studying math.

So I will finish this review later but I'll just say now that I read this book during my math breaks and that it provided some distraction and just new ideas about math, it opened my eyes to other connections and hey, I feel like I now know more.

I wish it went more in depth but I realize that's not the point. More later!

[Metin Yılmaz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beklediğim gibi, matematiğin tarihi tadında bir kitap değildi.

[Hitesh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some very good revelation on Fractals and Origin of calculus and Trigonometry and Turing Machine.

Not actually an Introduction on Mathematics, but it is for someone who knows the what,which and how of mathematics..else. Someone who is looking as a basic introduction will find this book a disappointment.

The book should've rather been named Re-Introducing Mathematics.

Skip the book, if Mathematics was a matter of force for you in your school !!!

[Darius Daruvalla-riccio · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great chance to learn about what the maths actually meant at the stage where i mentally checked out. It puts it in terms which are as simple as possible and gives you a framework of all the areas to cover.

If you want to really take it in, you have to read it slowly and pause to think it through or talk it through with chat gpt.

[Tobias · Rating 2 out of 5]

A cute little book about the history of mathematics presented with (mostly unrelated but fun) illustrations and sparse text. I do have some points of critique:
- I spotted quite a few errors -- some minor and some quite large -- especially in the latter parts of the book, that I think anyone with knowledge of the subject will wince at.
- The typesetting for equations and mathematical symbols is simply ugly.
- The book ends with a moral lecture about race and gender issues in mathematics, and while I think these are fine points to bring up, it leaves quite a sour taste at the end. We are treated with a lesson on how unethical Europeans are and have been since the 16th century.
- The only "modern" subject covered in the book is statistics. We are told that mathematics in its modern form is all about uncertainty and chaos. I think there are many beautiful areas of modern mathematics which are not about uncertainty or chaos at all.
Although I did enjoy the first half of this book, all in all I cannot recommend it to anyone.

[Amirooo · Rating 5 out of 5]

يكفي ان أقول:
«مَنْ لم يكن رياضياً فلا نصيب له عندنا»

كانت أول عبارة تراها العين على باب الأكاديمية
أكاديمية من هو ؟

انه الفيلسوف أفلاطون.
فقد اشترط على طلابه دراسه الرياضيات قبل الشروع بدراسة الفلسفة

والسبب ان أفلاطون يعتقد ان وراء هذا الكون المحسوس أفكارًا قد سبقته وهي بمثابة الأصل والروح. وهذي الافكار هي الشيء الثابت بينما المحسوسات التي نحس بها هي الشيء الزائل.
فالفكرة هي الثابت والعادة هي الزائلة
ومن هنا اهتمام أفلاطون بالرياضيات؛ لأنها كلها أفكار

🖤فهذا الكتاب الجميل يجعلك تحلق بين الأفكار لا بين الأرقام🖤

[Eddie B. · Rating 1 out of 5]

الترجمة جعلت الكتاب غير قابل للقراءة بالنسبة لي كغير متخصص (ومن المفترض أن يخاطب كتاب عنوانه "أقدم لك" غير المتخصصين!).
أتمنى أن تكون النسخة الإنجليزية أكثر رحمة بالقراء.

[Rick Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, this book will give you a tiny glimpse on the history of Mathematics. If you are interested to learn about it, do buy it.

[Wali Touseef · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gives us a browf history of maths and helps us understand importantance of maths by its uses.

[Miguel Angel Lozano · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.75
Quick overview of the history of math with mostly convenient explanatory text. I enjoyed the sections on Euclid’s proposals, trigonometry, number theory, and calculus. The best fragment of the book is over Euler’s divine formula; the fact that complex relationships graph periodically between spheres and sine functions is mystifying -according to the few bits I’ve gathered from physics, particles behave this way; then what is going on?!

I came to see that math emerged as a religion, and fairly it has stayed the same today. It does not say anywhere in the book, but it is so obvious; Egyptian numerals were a succession from the most simple to the most complex: one represented one line, 10 was a bent trace, 100 a curve, 1000 a stone, 10,000 a plant, 100,000 an animal, 1,000,000 a human, and 10,000,000 the sun, the most common god in ancient cultures. Hinduists thought maths were expressions from the gods. Greeks that they had divine properties. Today holds anchored in scientific fields: a pythagoro-platonic ontology: the world as built from tensions, proportions, mathematical relationships.. phenomena as an interplay of those and our ratios. It is a really interesting outlook, and so ancient, and so confluent in various cultures. They´ve all arrived at some level of metaphysical explanation to them.


What I did not like. First, I thought the review of ancient cultures was a bit long, then, at the last few chapters it revealed a long exposition of why, and why math principles got debunked in the last century; they delved into platonic dogma and ethnomathematics -favoritism of a cultural method of doing math- (as if it mattered, there´s a reason why Arabic numbers are common to the West). The debate turned philosophical really quickly and postmodern critiques started to add up. In general, I think there´s some truth to them, but are essentially based on not listening to the main greek restrictions for knowledge; this is what Plato and Aristotle were all about!

Of course, if you delve into the all-changing phenomena of the physical world, you will start getting all sorts of uncertainties; this was the main reason for the platonic division of the world: an abstract world of forms, ideas, relationships, and the world of senses which its moving state was the main description made by Heraclitus. If this critique is true, the argument of the uncertainty of statistics would not mean anything directly to pure math because the materials taken from the sensible phenomena would account for the variation. The formulas would stay the same, just as the Greeks have shown. I think this could also be said for chaos. One could work his way through to a specific point right... once followed all previous steps one could produce it... Does this means all the predicates were already in the premise... Idk... it is more complicated here I think. Also, the algebra part was fuzzy and unclear.

Well, all n all, it was a good read. Sorry, I would have rated it 3, but I´m not so fond of postmodernism.

[Krishna Sangeeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started reading since it was a graphical guide. I must say i enjoyed reading it and learned a thing or two. I have always enjoyed understanding the history behind something that we are learning, this book acts as a brief intro on how the field of mathematics evolved over time right from counting to calculus and beyond.

Some of my notes/thoughts
=====================

- This idea that mathematics was something that formally developed in the west and then moved to east as part of colonialism is proven as a wrong interpretation of history with mathematics from India, China and Arab world given their due respect. I was pleasantly surprised to see the role of Kerala mathematicians[1] mentioned in the book.

- Many of the things that we take for granted such as number of hours in a day , minutes in an hour , base 10 number system etc exists for historical reasons. Sometimes it is convenience and familiarity that determines processes more than their efficiency.

- `Music is the sensation of counting without being aware you were counting.` This quote from Liebniz striked me, most of the things we do or enjoy has some mathematical aspect to it. Most of the times we are unaware of it. It also made me think of statements such as musical gift is natural, there is a part of this musical gift which is about understanding different scales and that part of picking up the right scale would be a mathematical gift which a musician acquires without realisation? This in my opinion could be extended to any field of human endeavour and there is some mathematics at play either knowingly or unknowingly.

- The moment we start giving some divine interpretation on the infallibility of maths we loose out, through Godel's incompleteness theorem and many other paradoxes we now know that there are loose ends in maths. This for me was an interesting point to reflect upon, To cover up these loose ends we invent new fields of study and pursuit of these studies might seem pointless, but the idea is that there will be some application of it in the future. For example study of large prime number's have helped cryptography thereby ensuring that our digital transactions are secure.



[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala_...

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Horrifically embarrassing end few chapters. "Ethnomathematics" seems to conclude Ethnonationalism in math after introducing it as a universal subject which seems to be the poor man's Naziism. The introduction was great defining the issue of seeing math as simply exoculturally empirical as an issue. Of course, with great interest in a mathematical historicism, it showed me interest which was rapidly self-undermining in explaining how every example in other ("Other" for anyone feeling self-conscious per the book's quote) mathematics was an empirical endeavor (The algebra discovered in European women weaving? Is this serious?). Of course don't let self-conscious people turn you off a mathematical historicism. It has great derivatives in technology and the development of our future and historical math but these book's insights into the field were thankfully resolved after a terrible war (and Holocaust if the author's at all interested).
Aside from that, the book is written well. The other cultures could be expanded upon more (the Arab section was perfect in length and could perhaps give even the Greeks some justice in that), the calculus section was written a bit haphazardly and had to be supplemented with too many irrelevant pick-me-up images to keep the reader going and Hilbert's Programme could have been expanded. I also would have been interested more in mathematical logic in the completeness and incompleteness theorem rather than an extended section on statistics which had a civil policy section in it for anyone completely uninterested in math. That and the attempt to formalize numbers towards nihilism could have had a platonic or intuitionist justification (the author is a formalist and you see nothing in the book concerning the two most important interpretations in math).

There's a lot to dislike about this book but if you're starting from nowhere then anything is an okay start. If you're extremely allergic to politics I would avoid this book like the plague as it can be a huge turn-off to math. If, however, your metaphysics is nominalist then you might enjoy the narrative. Other than that it's a good pump-and-dump math book.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Introducing Mathematics” (1999©) by Ziauddin Sardar, Jerry Ravetz and Rorin Van Loon. This is another in the “Introducing” series which hopes to bring an overview of any given topic via a series of pictures and brief sentences/paragraphs about the great people and ideas related to the topic. This time, the topic is math and the explanation covers from the dawn of civilization to the present and all of civilization (Eastern, Western, Egyptian, American Indian, Arabic, etc) too. If you want a broad based overview of a lot of the main topics under math – including the people and timeframes – this is the book for you. If you’re looking for in depth coverage and knowledge, it’s only a springboard. In either case, it’s more than satisfactory and I highly recommend it, too.

[Yatinder Singh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like how this book makes a sort of list of various areas in mathematics, an overview, something our schools fail and/or refuse to teach, this helps generate interest in Mathematics, knowing where does what fit.
However, this book could do much better at explaining those concepts; it’s a little too brief and doesn’t nearly give the easy explanations it could to these otherwise really intriguing concepts.
It does captures the essence of all the cultures that participated in making mathematics what it is today, yet underplays the importance of Ancient Indian Mathematics.

All in all, it’s not that it’s the best book at what it does, it’s just that there’s so few of those books that do talk about the stuff that this one does, which is what gets makes this a worthy-ish read.

[Molly Mccarthy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this little graphic book. It was an engaging way to learn about the history of mathematics, famous mathematicians and the way in which mathematics interacts with the world. I especially liked the information about ancient number systems and paradoxes.

I think this book is suitable for people with a medium-level background in mathematics as it is definitely not introductory like the title suggests. It uses some heavy mathematical terminology, especially in the second half. I didn't mind this though because I do have that background.

I am definitely keen to check out some more of these graphic guides as I think they are a great way to learn about new topics in a lighthearted way.

[Stefan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good Overview and Intro

As with other books in the series, sometimes clarity is unfortunately sacrificed in the service of brevity. There are a few places where errors in the dialog balloons in the cartoons sabotages the flow (and accuracy) of the main text. Otherwise, the book is a good survey of mathematics organized in roughly chronological order of the relevant discoveries and developments. It is a good place to start but like many e-books the formatting of formulas is sometimes lost so view them with caution.

[Qais Khirfan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Someone who’s good in maths would rate it a 5/5 without a question. It’s a well put together book and i enjoyed it even tho i’m not that into maths. I rated it a 3/5 because i didn’t really understand what they were talking about half of the time so i didn’t really obtain that much information from it. The graphic aspect of it was entertaining and helped me be intrigued as to what they were talking about. Where the mentioned the islamic nation cultivating the word algebra was honestly the best part in my opinion, helped me learn more about my religion’s and culture’s achievements.

[Ben G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having previously read 'Introducing Logic' another book in this 'Introducing...' series I was compelled to purchase this from 'Great Reads and Little Readers' in Whitby (another independent - got to keep the small business in business!).

The accessibility of these books lies in their brief but concise text and the plethora of illustrations which really take the strain out of reading introductions to academic subjects. Having studied some Mathematics at University level in the last decade, not being a mathematician and still being mystified as to where all the sub-branches of (this sometimes) obscure subject fit and meld into one another - this book provides some answer's.

The book spends at least it's first-half covering the historical legacy of greek, chinese and islamic mathematical scholars and their contribution to 'modern' mathematics, which starts in earnest with the 'emergence of european mathematics' and the contributions of Descartes, Leibniz and indeed Newton. Arguably, the book was of greatest interset to me after Descartes (pg. 91) - in respect of outlining the major branches of mathematics and their applications. I realise in saying that, I am negating geometry, trigonometry and algebra legacies of chinese, greek, indian and islamic mathematicians.

I would suggest reading these introductions is time well invested, before taking on larger tome's on academic subjects to give the interested reader an overview. If not pursued further, a robust overview (largely historical in this instance) of the subjectis provided.

[CM · Rating 2 out of 5]

Once you pass the more mundane first half, a narrative somehow emerges and we all learn something, more history than mathematics. Most readers will probably need some videos to understand the one or two highly abridged proof here.

Rather few post-secondary concepts were introduced here (Cantor's diagonal argument, chaos theory, fractals and topology) and as a long-time reader of this series, this book still feels more disjointed than usual .

[Thomas Affinito · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terrible

Poor writing filled with mathematical errors, poor topic flow, random illustrations that have nothing to do with the subject, terms are introduced without definition, and the lack of historical throughline shows poor understanding of mathematical history and development.

I read lots of math books, and also enjoy good inspirational introductory overviews of the subject to share with others…this is not one of them.

[Marwa · Rating 3 out of 5]

كتاب مبسط عن تاريخ نشوء المفاهيم الرياضية على مر العصور و يوضح ما المطلوب أن نفعله تجاه الرياضيات في وقتنا الحالي
واجهت صعوبة في فهم بعض النظريات بسبب الرموز العربية ( س و ص و أ و ب ) لأن دراستي للرياضيات مفهومة بالنسبة لي بواسطة رموز إنكليزية و لاتينية
و كذلك بعض الصفحات محذوفة وليست كاملة
و الكاتب كذلك لم يوضح بشكل مفهوم بعض المفاهيم والنظريات
ف الكتاب هذا موجه لأصحاب الإختصاص و ليس للعامة
استفدت منه القليل

[Re-Read Alcobendas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un recorrido muy chulo sobre la historia de las matemáticas. Nos habla de la importancia de esta ciencia en todos los campos de la vida de una forma fácil y accesible.

El libro está ilustrado y tiene un punto cómico e irónico al mostrarnos ejemplos sobre civilizaciones o hitos históricos.

Trigonometría, estadística, geometría, ecuaciones, polinomios, paralelas, computación🤯🤯...

¡Todo y todos dependemos de los números!

#️⃣*️⃣0️⃣1️⃣2️⃣3️⃣4️⃣5️⃣6️⃣8️⃣9️⃣

[Ahmed Lila · Rating 3 out of 5]

قرأت ما يتجاوز مائة صفحة قراءة سريعة، لأن محتوى الكتاب لم يضف لي شيئًا معتبر، لا أنكر أن هناك معلومتان أو بضع المعلومات التي تفاجأت بمعرفتها
خلاف ذلك فهو غير واف
لمَ ثلاثة نجوم؟
لأن الكتاب مفيد للمرحلة العمرية بين 12:16 للطالب في نهاية المرحلة الإعدادية وبداية الثانوية
كمقدمة لطيفة بسيطة له للقراءة عن علم الرياضيات

[Jimbax · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're a non-mathematician amateur such as me, definitely read this book. In such a short book, it manages to cover the history of math as well as raise current questions regarding the infallibility of mathematics. Illustrations are a bit corny, but be sure to read all the illustrated dialogues. Helped me understand how math is not all founded on Western culture.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this up to relate more with my wife who loves math to this day. I kind of let it slide since high school. I always preferred history.
Guess what, this tells a lot about the history of math,
And it was not boring.
Favorite part was the mathematician who wrote a formula for an atheist to prove there was a God.

[Motlib · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice overview of the evolution of Mathematics. Not all concepts are easy to follow, as the explanations are very brief. More of a fun history with graphical illustration rather than one focusing on the actual concepts. Enjoyable read.