Overview

The ancient Greeks played a fundamental role in the history of mathematics and their ideas were reused and developed in subsequent periods all the way down to the scientific revolution and beyond. In this, the first complete history for a century. Reviel Netz offers a panoramic view of the rise and influence of Greek mathematics and its significance in world history. He explores the Near Eastern antecedents and the social and intellectual developments underlying the subject's beginnings in Greece in the fifth century BCE. He leads the reader through the proofs and arguments of key figures like Archytas, Euclid and Archimedes, and considers the totality of the Greek mathematical achievement which also includes, in addition to pure mathematics, such applied fields as optics, music, mechanics and, above all, astronomy. This is the story not only of a major historical development, but of some of the finest mathematics ever created.

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9781108833844

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Reviews

'This is a brilliant, pioneering, breathtakingly ambitious book, written with passion, wit and gusto, a veritable joy to read. Composed by the foremost world expert on Archimedes, it offers new perspectives not just on Greek mathematics but on its significance for our understanding of the rise of Western science as a whole. To this end it brings to bear an extraordinary range of material from non-Greek as well as Greek sources and develops original arguments concerning the fundamental question of why and how Western science developed in the way it did.' Sir Geoffrey Lloyd, Professor of Ancient Philosophy and Science, University of Cambridge 'As a brilliant successor to Heath's A New History of Greek Mathematics of a century earlier, Netz's New History, rather than providing a detailed chronology of the field, tells a compelling story that fits Greek mathematics into the history of the world. The reader will not only learn about the predecessors of the Greeks, but also gain an appreciation of the immense influence Greek mathematics had on the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century and the industrial revolution of the eighteenth century. In between, of course, Netz provides detailed insights into how Greek scholars from Hipparchus to Eutocius developed the concepts that stand at the basis of modern mathematics.' Victor Katz, Professor Emeritus of Ancient Mathematics, University of the District of Columbia

Author Information

REVIEL NETZ is Patrick Suppes Professor of Greek Mathematics and Astronomy at Stanford University. He is the author of many books on Greek mathematics and culture, including The Shaping of Deduction in Greek Mathematics (Cambridge, 1999), The Archimedes Codex (co-authored with William Noel, 2007), Ludic Proof: Greek Mathematics and the Alexandrian Aesthetic (Cambridge, 2009) and Scale, Space and Canon in Ancient Literary Culture (Cambridge, 2020).

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