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Despite what we may sometimes imagine, popular mathematics writing didn't begin with Martin Gardner. In fact, it has a rich tradition stretching back hundreds of years. This entertaining and enlightening anthology--the first of its kind--gathers nearly one hundred fascinating selections from the pas... More

This is the second volume in a two-part set on the writings of Thomas Salmon. Salmon (1647-1706) is remembered today for the fury with which Matthew Locke greeted his first foray into musical writing, the Essay to the Advancement of Musick (1672), and the near-farcical level to which the subsequent ... More

John Birchensha (c.1605-?1681) is chiefly remembered for the impression that his theories about music made on the mathematicians, natural philosophers and virtuosi of the Royal Society in the 1660s and 1670s, and for inventing a system that he claimed would enable even those without practical experi... More

How, in 1705, was Thomas Salmon, a parson from Bedfordshire, able to persuade the Royal Society that a musical performance could constitute a scientific experiment? Or that the judgement of a musical audience could provide evidence for a mathematically precise theory of musical tuning? This book pre... More

A sweeping cultural history of one of the most influential mathematical books ever writtenEuclid's Elements of Geometry is one of the fountainheads of mathematics—and of culture. Written around 300 BCE, it has traveled widely across the centuries, generating countless new ideas and inspiring such fi... More

Techniques for deciphering texts by early mathematiciansWritings by early mathematicians feature language and notations that are quite different from what we're familiar with today. Sourcebooks on the history of mathematics provide some guidance, but what has been lacking is a guide tailored to the ... More

John Wallis (1616-1703), was one of the foremost British mathematicians of the seventeenth century, and is also remembered for his important writings on grammar and logic. An interest in music theory led him to produce translations into Latin of three ancient Greek texts - those of Ptolemy, Porphyry... More

Libraries and archives contain many thousands of early modern mathematical books, of which almost equally many bear readers’ marks, ranging from deliberate annotations and accidental blots to corrections and underlinings. Such evidence provides us with the material and intellectual tools for explori... More