God Created the Integers: The Mathematical Breakthroughs That Changed History

Bestselling author and physicist Stephen Hawking explores the "masterpieces" of mathematics, 25 landmarks spanning 2,500 years and representing the work of 15 mathematicians, including Augustin Cauchy, Bernard Riemann, and Alan Turing. This extensive anthology allows readers to peer into the mind of genius by providing them with excerpts from the original mathematical proofs and results. It also helps them understand the progression of mathematical thought, and the very foundations of our present-day technologies. Each chapter begins with a biography of the featured mathematician, clearly explaining the significance of the result, followed by the full proof of the work, reproduced from the original publication.

A collection of history's most extraordinary moments in math

Library Journal

Best-selling author and world-renowned physicist Hawking has created a showcase of literature excerpts describing mathematicians and ideas that have shaped the history of science. Broader in scope than his earlier works (e.g., A Brief History of Time; The Universe in a Nutshell) and similar in approach to his more recent work, On the Shoulders of Giants, this features biographies of 17 great figures in the world of mathematics and 31 excerpts of their landmark literature. Any "greatest-of" collection is controversial, and there are some omissions here, including 19th-century mathematician variste Galois (inventor of the group theory) and 16th-century number theorist Pierre de Fermat (Fermat's Theorem). Additionally, the text ends with philosopher and mathematician Alan Turing's 1950s work on computable numbers, which seems premature. William Dunham's Journey Through Genius: Great Theorems of Mathematics and The Mathematical Universe: An Alphabetical Journey Through the Great Proofs, Problems, and Personalities are similar in content and presentation. This book, with its accessible biographies and explanations of ideas, is recommended for larger public and academic libraries.-Elizabeth Brown, Binghamton Univ. Libs., NY Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Stephen Hawking made black holes palatable for the masses with his 1988 book A Brief History of Time, which had The New York Times pointing out that he is bravely taking some of the first, though tentative, steps toward quantizing the early universe.