MATH 330
Introduction to the History of Mathematics


This is a home page to accompany a class being taught at CSUSM in the Fall semester of 1996 by David Barsky.

You can retrieve homework assignments and the course syllabus online. You can also check the schedule of presentations (this is where the "collages" of journal entries can be found).

I've placed several books on reserve in the library that Math 330 students might find useful in preparing presentations, journal entries and short papers.

  • A History of Mathematics, An Introduction by Victor Katz (the course text)
  • A History of Mathematics by Florian Cajori
  • A History of Mathematics by Boyer and Merzbach
  • History of Mathematics, Volume I by D.E. Smith
  • The Historical Roots of Elementary Mathematics by Bunt, Jones and Bedient
  • Mathematical Thought From Ancient to Modern Times, Volume 1 by Morris Kline
  • Mathematical Thought From Ancient to Modern Times, Volume 2 by Morris Kline
  • Women in Mathematics by Lynn Osen
  • Math Equals. Biographies of Women Mathematicians + Related Activities by Teri Perl
  • Chinese Mathematics, A Concise History by Li and Du
  • Journey Through Genius by William Dunham

    Here are also some links that might be of interest to students of the history of mathematics:

  • The math-history-list archive contains all of the messages posted to this mailing group on the history of mathematics.
  • The History of Mathematics archive, which is part of the Mathematical MacTutor system developed at the University of St Andrews (in Scotland). This archive contains biographies of more than 1100 mathematicians. About 200 of these biographies are fairly detailed and most are accompanied by pictures of the mathematicians.
  • Solving the Quintic with Mathematica is a Wolfram Research site that includes a short history of solving polynomial equations starting with Babylonians solving quadratics in radicals (ca. 2000 BC), and going all the way up to David Dummit and (independently) Sigeru Kobayashi and Hiroshi Nakagawa giving methods for finding the roots of a general solvable quintic in radicals (1991, 1992).
  • History of Mathematics maintained by David E. Joyce (Clark University, USA). Includes a comprehensive chronology of mathematicians. I really like the "regional mathematics" page.
  • History of Mathematics Web Resources maintained by David E. Joyce (Clark University, USA). A good place to find more general information.
  • Ancient Mathematics at the Library of Congress Vatican Exhibit. Some interesting articles mainly about Greek Mathematics, and some beautiful jpeg files of ancient books (although, on occasion, the enlarged versions of these are distorted)
  • Archimedes maintained by Chris Rorres (USA). A lot of nicely presented information about Archimedes.
  • The Mathematical Quotations Server maintained by Mark Woodard. Quotations by mathematicians or about mathematics.
  • Favourite Mathematical Constants maintained by Steven Finch. Information on a collection of well-known, and some more obscure constants.
  • The History of Mathematics maintained by D. R. Wilkins (Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland). Including excerpts from W. W. Rouse Ball's A short account of the history of mathematics.
  • WWW Virtual Library, History of Science Technology and Medicine maintained by Tim Sherratt (ASAP, Australia). A more general history of science.
  • Bright SPARCS database of scientists (ANU, Canberra, Australia). You can pull up a list of mathemticians by taking the link that allows you to browse a list of scientific fields. (It seems that more files will be added to this site soon.)
  • Catalog of the Scientific Community: 16th and 17th Centuries at the Galileo Project (University of St Andrews). A searchable database of scientists including information on over 160 mathematicians.
  • A Brief History of Algebra and Computing: An Eclectic Oxonian View by Jonathan Bowen at the Oxford University Computing Laboratory. A hypertext article with hyperlinks to the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.
  • The Hooke Museum of the History of Science at the University of Oxford. There currently is a fascinating exhibit on The Geometry of War, 1500-1750 available through these pages.
  • A History of Sciences related to Astronomy maintained by Wolfgang R. Dick (IFAG, Potsdam, Germany). Several links to other sites.

    I am always looking for more sites dealing with the history of mathematics to add to this page. Use the link at the bottom of this page to send me the URL of any good page that you find.

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    You can e-mail comments, questions, etc. to me at
    (djbarsky@csusm.edu)