A Cultural History of Mathematics in the Medieval Age

A comprehensive history of numbers in the Medieval Age

A Cultural History of Mathematics in the Medieval Age covers the period from 500 to 1450, focusing in particular on the innovations in East and South Asia and in Islamicate cultures. With the invention of algebra and the decimal place-value number system – as well as innovations in trigonometry, astronomy, and finance – medieval mathematics reenvisioned the science it inherited from antiquity and fundamentally transformed the world.

The six volume set of the Cultural History of Mathematics explores the value and impact of mathematics in human culture from antiquity to the present. The themes covered in each volume are everyday numeracy; practice and profession; inventing mathematics; mathematics and worldviews; describing and understanding the world; mathematics and technological change; representing mathematics.

Joseph W. Dauben is Distinguished Professor of History at the City University of New York, USA.Clemency Montelle is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Kim Plofker is Associate Professor of Mathematics at Union College, Schenectady, NY,USA.

Volume 2 in the Cultural History of Mathematics set.
General Editors: David E. Rowe, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany, and Joseph W. Dauben, City University of New York, USA.