The History of the Calculus and Its Conceptual Development (Dover Books on Mathematics)

It took me three attempts to finish this book. Why? Because although there is a wealth of VERY interesting information the writing style is turgid to say the least. Yes, I understand that this was the prevailing style for "academic" books in the thirties and forties but even with that excuse things could have been explained in a less bombastic style.Having stated the above I am glad that I kept at it because I learnt that the arrow of history was clearly pointing to someone or some group of mathematicians coming up with the Calculus as we know it today. Also much of the rigor we know today (Limits etc) are quite recent inventions. All in all I believe this book is worth reading IF, AND ONLY IF, you are truly interested in the history of mathematics. One of the reviewers trashed this text because it was supposedly western centric. This argument would hold water if someone could recommend a text supporting the argument with specifics.One more caveat - it would be best to read this text if one has a good working knowledge of calculus. This is implied by the author in many places.

The history of calculus is an interesting one. The concept came first and the proofs followed much later. My issue with the book is that the author is too wordy. He wants to sound smart and majestic, but he comes off as pompous.Example: “...it has at the same time been regarded by idealistic metaphysics as a manifestation that beyond the finitism of sensory percipiency there is a transcendent infinite which can be but asymptotically approached by human experience and reason.” WHAT!!??

I am still reading it, but am half way through. The book has a lot of interesting information. For the first time I understand how Archimedes found the volume of a sphere by "weighing" it, and that is only one of many great insights. I am not giving it five stars because, as others have said, it is written a style that may have been common at the time, but to the modern reader can be frustrating. I think the same information, with the same nuance where necessary, could be written in a less tedious manner today.

Boyer is a historian of mathematics, and I have his larger history text, which I like much better. I honestly expected a history of the calculus to be more of a fascinating read. The author does an excellent job of taking you through some of the finer points of this history and reasons why, for example, Archimedes should not be given credit for discovering the calculus, but why there is some justification for such a claim. The thing is, these finer points of the history are mentioned quite frequently even with regard to mathematicians whom I have never heard of. It seems that someone is always saying that so-and-so really discovered the calculus, and Boyer always points out why in fact they did not. The writing also can be rather verbose at times (this is sometimes entertaining). I do not see this text as appealing to a lay reader with an interest in the history of one of the greatest intellectual acheivements of all time: the calculus. I see this as appealing more to historians of mathematics or other such related fields. I started this book twice, and the second time, I made it about three fifths of the way through. It's hard to read a lot at once. It's a history book, not a book about the history. There are a fair amount of diagrams, and the math is interesting, if at times confusing, to follow. I can't say that my understanding of calculus is much deeper after reading the majority of the book, though it certainly does have a larger and more technical context.

The book itself is great, I have enjoyed reading it. However the kindle edition has a poor quality because the mathematical formulas seem to be photographs of the paperback edition and will not change their size when you want to resize the text. I have seen more samples of dover books and found the same problem. I hope that in a future this issue is adressed and the formulas are not photographs but real text that can be resized (use LaTex please).

excellent

Reading this book today makes one feel tremendously satisfied and sad alike. Modern books on the history of mathematics pale in contrast to this one (I would mention one exception, The History of Pi, but it was written in the 60s or 70s so I think its not really an actual book either, and you have to forgive his Woodstock Festival reamrks about the world).The title of the book mentions the "conceptual development", and thats were the book excels at, describing how the procedural evolution of maths got to the (invention? discovery?...who knows...) of Calculus.It has never ceased to amaze me how accurately the differential ecuations describe the real physical fenomena or how Riemanns topology gave Einstein the mathematical foundation needed for his theory 100 years later and so on (if you are intrigued by the inner nature of mathematics DONT buy "Is God a Mathematician", a book more suited for an Oprah show than for someone really interested on the real nature of mathematics). Some reviewers were more critic with certain aspects of the book, fair enough, as humans we are fable, but I seriously doubt a better book on this subject has ever been written. Regrettably there are many books on the history of mathematics but most of them fail, not this one, as someone said , Boyer is the Edward Gibbon of the history of maths.Thanks Newton, Euler, Rieman, Pitagoras, Pointcare, Leibniz, Cantor...I saw further because I stood on your shoulders.

Excellent

Das Werk eines kompetenten Autors. Eine spannende Lektüre. Allerdings werden für das volle Verständnis mathematikhistorische Grundkenntnisse vorausgesetzt, also für Einsteiger ist das Buch weniger geeignet.