An Imaginary Tale: The Story of "i" [the square root of minus one] 在线电子书 图书标签: 科普 数学 英文原版 數學 教材 Mathematics
发表于2024-11-11
An Imaginary Tale: The Story of "i" [the square root of minus one] 在线电子书 pdf 下载 txt下载 epub 下载 mobi 下载 2024
Today complex numbers have such widespread practical use - from electrical engineering to aeronautics - that few people would expect the story behind their derivation to be filled with adventure and enigma. In "An Imaginary Tale", Paul Nahin tells the 2000-year-old history of one of mathematics' most elusive numbers, the square root of minus one, also known as i. He recreates the baffling mathematical problems that conjured it up, and the colourful characters who tried to solve them. In 1878, when two brothers stole a mathematical papyrus from the ancient Egyptian burial site in the Valley of Kings, they led scholars to the earliest known occurrence of the square root of a negative number. The papyrus offered a specific numerical example of how to calculate the volume of a truncated square pyramid, which implied the need for i.In the first century, the mathematician-engineer Heron of Alexandria encountered 'i' in a separate project, but fudged the arithmetic; medieval mathematicians stumbled upon the concept while grappling with the meaning of negative numbers, but dismissed their square roots as nonsense. By the time of Descartes, a theoretical use for these elusive square roots - now called 'imaginary numbers' - was suspected, but efforts to solve them led to intense, bitter debates. The notorious i finally won acceptance and was put to use in complex analysis and theoretical physics in Napoleonic times.Addressing readers with both a general and scholarly interest in mathematics, Nahin weaves into this narrative entertaining historical facts and mathematical discussions, including the application of complex numbers and functions to important problems, such as Kepler's laws of planetary motion and ac electrical circuits. This book can be read as an engaging history, almost a biography, of one of the most evasive and pervasive 'numbers' in all of mathematics.
二次方程 1)古希腊数学家丢番图,为求解某个几何问题,建立一元二次方程,求解过程中遇到负数开平方(虚数)。他认为该解无意义,方程对应的几何问题不存在实际答案。 2)后来,印度数学家也遇到类似的问题,与丢番图持同样观点。 三次方程 3)后来,意大利一个叫费罗的数学家...
评分仅以此文纪念中学时候读过的数学名著通俗译丛 记得第一次接触这套书,是在初中的时候,有次上海书城未开业前的内部开放,我跟着一群原来住在那里的居民混了进去,就看到了这套书的前三册:数论妙趣,新的黄金时代和数学娱乐问题,还依稀记得当时嗜书(特别是好的数学书)如命...
评分仅以此文纪念中学时候读过的数学名著通俗译丛 记得第一次接触这套书,是在初中的时候,有次上海书城未开业前的内部开放,我跟着一群原来住在那里的居民混了进去,就看到了这套书的前三册:数论妙趣,新的黄金时代和数学娱乐问题,还依稀记得当时嗜书(特别是好的数学书)如命...
评分二次方程 1)古希腊数学家丢番图,为求解某个几何问题,建立一元二次方程,求解过程中遇到负数开平方(虚数)。他认为该解无意义,方程对应的几何问题不存在实际答案。 2)后来,印度数学家也遇到类似的问题,与丢番图持同样观点。 三次方程 3)后来,意大利一个叫费罗的数学家...
评分仅以此文纪念中学时候读过的数学名著通俗译丛 记得第一次接触这套书,是在初中的时候,有次上海书城未开业前的内部开放,我跟着一群原来住在那里的居民混了进去,就看到了这套书的前三册:数论妙趣,新的黄金时代和数学娱乐问题,还依稀记得当时嗜书(特别是好的数学书)如命...
An Imaginary Tale: The Story of "i" [the square root of minus one] 在线电子书 pdf 下载 txt下载 epub 下载 mobi 下载 2024