Eric Temple Bell was born in 1883 in Aberdeen, Scotland. His early education was obtained in England. Coming to the United States in 1902, he entered Stanford University and took his A.B. degree in 1904. In 1908 he was teaching fellow at the University of Washington, where he took his A.M. degree in 1909. In 1911 he entered Columbia University, where he took his Ph.D. degree in 1912. He returned to the University of Washington as instructor in mathematics and became full professor in 1921. During the summers of 1924-28 he taught at the University of Chicago, and in 1926 (first half) at Harvard University, when he was appointed Professor of Mathematics at the California Institute of Technology.

Dr. Bell was a former President of the Mathematical Association of America, a former Vice President of the American Mathematical Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was on the editorial staffs of the Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, the American Journal of Mathematics, and the Journal of the Philosophy of Science. He belonged to The American Mathematical Society, the Mathematical Association of America, the Circolo Matematico di Palermo, the Calcutta Mathematical Society, Sigma Xi, and Phi Beta Kappa, and was a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. He won the Bôcher Prize of the American Mathematical Society for his research work. His twelve published books include The Purple Sapphire (1924), Algebraic Arithmetic (1927), Debunking Science, and Queen of the Sciences (1931), Numerology (1933), and The Search for Truth (1934).

Dr. Bell died in December 1960, just before the publication of his latest book, The Last Problem.

Here is the classic, much-read introduction to the craft and history of mathematics by E.T. Bell, a leading figure in mathematics in America for half a century. Men of Mathematics accessibly explains the major mathematics, from the geometry of the Greeks through Newton's calculus and on to the laws of probability, symbolic logic, and the fourth dimension. In addition, the book goes beyond pure mathematics to present a series of engrossing biographies of the great mathematicians -- an extraordinary number of whom lived bizarre or unusual lives. Finally, Men of Mathematics is also a history of ideas, tracing the majestic development of mathematical thought from ancient times to the twentieth century. This enduring work's clear, often humorous way of dealing with complex ideas makes it an ideal book for the non-mathematician.