"The Story of Mathematics - From creating the pyramids to exploring infinity" by Anne Rooney

A very gentle and friendly introductory text talking about the history of Mathematics!

Along with Collins Dictionary of Mathematics, this book was also one of the first we have purchased as our excitement for Math began to blossom. That's right: This was originally bought back in 2009, so why did it take so long for us to read and review? Life, jumping back and forth with my career path that's why, but now that we're fully settled, it's about time. Given that this book received low reviews only to be met with more reasonable, fair ones, it's a Godsend that this very platform of ours we can discuss without coming off as some bot or spam of some kind. Why, yes, this entire website and its contents are done and operated by a real human being and no emphasis on anything "artificially generated."

Cool, so why even read a story/history about Mathematics? While its history has had moments where some information were not saved and preserved leaving many discoveries to be approximated, that should tell you how muddled Math History is, despite the on-going efforts to research and secure the dates of many of its findings. Author Anne Rooney has done a great job diligently talking about the history of a subject that many don't often read about. In the Introduction, Rooney spoke about the beauty of numbers and what role it plays in our everyday lives—an example of something we take for granted. And because of the general public's low opinion about Math overall, this introductory page alone was written enough to get the reader curious. In other words, I thought it was a great opening to start the book.

Right away, starting with the birth of numbers, the book reads like something you'd find in a school textbook/encyclopedia. That's not a bad thing, but from how the page is laid out, it reads like one all while being engaging and holding the reader's interest, adding some snippets of visuals and facts that will entice. The reader learns about how early humans recorded their tallies and kept track of their herds, bills, taxes and so on. Along the way, Rooney also introduces some names, big and small, who have contributed and did the brain-work in making Math something of a discipline that ought to be taught to students of all. You will learn why the word "many" was common, and the names of numbers themselves didn't come until much later. The fact that early civilization couldn't count up higher than three or four was an interesting bit; Makes you wonder how much work and collaboration was needed in order to do something we rarely think about, like counting.

The reader then learns about countries like India and Egypt working on tallying and adding names to these numbers, alongside further developing the discipline in what goes into "number crunching," if you will. In other words, they all learned you can obtain new numbers if you get them added, subtracted, multiplied etc. Overall, Math wasn't something the early people did because of boredom or because it was a "job." They did so to get things done and to better organize the transactions they had back then and even today. We wouldn't be where we are if it weren't for Math, and Rooney has provided a friendly amount information for the reader to know about its growth, findings and development.

Going through the chapters, the reader learns about advanced practices and development that help create the studies of today, such as Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry and yes, also Calculus, including the higher-level studies like Number Theory. Once again, these were all done with the intent of getting things to where they are, being applied to wherever the research requires it. As someone who used to dislike Math greatly, all this has made more sense and has truly made us appreciate the workings, its growth and the rigorous work into making these studies and practices possible. However, you do get a bit of a laugh once you learn about Archimedes, as we won't spoil that part.

As for the notations used in Math, many of them are still used today while some were odd-looking and plain confusing. In fact, the plus sign (+) used for Addition didn't happen until the 1400s, along with the others that slowly followed. Some that are no longer used today are a bit tricky even to replicate here on this webpage but makes you know and wonder all that went into expressing the numbers being calculated.

For the master minds who made contributions to the problem-solving art, you get a brief biography about them as you read along. Some lived regular, normal lives while some were talented and gifted, and a few had some rough patches even during their childhoods. Nevertheless, their contribution(s) to Math is/was key and you learn of their perspectives in approaching the problem(s) on hand. Mentioning Algebra earlier, that discipline was named after the Arabic mathematician himself, al-Khwarizmi. When the disciplines matured, they were applied in areas such as Astronomy and Electrodynamics. Why did it take this long to do so? Believe it or not, people like the early Greeks did not accept nor associate with the number zero and there were very little acceptance and beliefs about infinity and complex numbers. Imagine a mathematical development so advanced that it couldn't be accepted, only to learn that many years later, it was crucial in solving tougher problems that Algebra and Geometry alone couldn't solve. Anyway, that's what happened which explains why mathematical growth was sparse in its heyday, then masterminds of the later centuries pushed the study further resulting in what we now have today. (I'd be scared to admit that had that growth not take place with these, we'd barely have searched the wheel by now.)

Lastly, you get a taste of the higher level mathematics like our personal favorite Probability; You also learn the rise of Game Theory and Statistics which work hand-in-hand with Probability. It was here where Rooney made mention of Pascal's Wager—something we didn't know about previously—talking about the likelihood of God existing. While the reader learns about this, one name to remember is Abraham de Moivre noted for recognizing the famous "bell curve."

I found this book to be a great precursor to the thicker books that go more in-depth, but honestly, the information provided is enough for the layperson wanting a neat survey and overview on the history of Math. For us, this is enough to encourage us to extend and further our knowledge and research of the subject! One reviewer complained about the lack of depth on the chapter about Set Theory, we thought it was enough and not too rigorous to the point where it would sway the reader's attention (set theory is an advanced study in Mathematics as the average person may not grasp its concept on the fly given its semantics). We thought it was a fair discussion about the subject, and if you think it wasn't explained properly, we dare those to try and understand Category Theory.

Sorry it took us this long, but we loved the book! We recommend this book for schools to get young students curious and excited about Math. As a matter of fact, we believe learning Math History is a great way for students and learners to better understand the subject, making it less intimidating. (Believe us, we used to hate Math with a passion, but thanks to computer programming, it all makes sense, leading us to love and admire the subject!)

Highly recommended!

Kris Caballero

Founder of KCU Network and KCU Plus, Kris has been writing since he managed a personal blog made back in late 2005. Officially back to doing computer programming (software development), Kris enjoys reading books on Mathematics, Quantum Computing, Philosophy, playing old video/DOS games, digital video archiving, and listening to sports, public radio and classical music.

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