Remarkable Mathematicians: From Euler to von Neumann

Citation

Mann, C.J.H. (2006), "Remarkable Mathematicians: From Euler to von Neumann", Kybernetes, Vol. 35 No. 9. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.2006.06735iae.013

Remarkable Mathematicians: From Euler to von Neumann

Remarkable Mathematicians: From Euler to von NeumannIoan JamesCambridge University Press2003ISBN: 0-521-52094-0449 pp.£19.99 (Paperback)

Readers will find great interest in a book published in 2003, which will serve as an inspired contribution to the history of mathematics for a great many decades. It contains the biographies of six well-known and distinguished mathematicians who lived from 1707 to 1903. Each era is distinctive and reflects the period as a stage in the development of mathematics as we know it today. There are ten chapters with each one containing the biographies of the mathematicians starting with Leonhard Euler and finishing with John von Neumann, who some of today's cyberneticians will have known personally.

The profiles are short but still informative and interesting. We are told that not only does the text give mathematical highlights of each person's life but that the author has managed to cover at the same time some 300 years of the development of mathematics. Short profiles of 60 top-flight mathematicians from around the world are also presented and listed in order of their birth.

C.J.H. MannNorbert Wiener Institute, University of Wales, Wales, UKBook Reviews and Reports Editor