Volume 32, Number 16 · October 24, 1985
Why Math Matters
By Ernest Nagel
Mathematics and the Search for Knowledge
by Morris Kline
Oxford University Press, 257 pp., $19.95
This book is not an account of mathematical analysis, and is not intended to supply the reader with a survey of the various branches and achievements of the subject. In this respect it is notably different from books that attempt to do just this, such as the fascinating What Is Mathematics? by Richard Courant and Herbert Robbins (first published in 1941). As Professor Kline makes explicit, his object is to make clear the important part mathematics has played in the investigation of physical nature. The book is thus primarily a history of the development of physical knowledge, from the time of the ancient Greeks to the revolutionary discoveries of the present century.
Review, 2514 words
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