''Men of Mathematics: The Lives and Achievements of the Great Mathematicians from Zeno to Poincaré'' is a

book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical a ...

on the history of mathematics published in 1937 by Scottish-born American mathematician and

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel univers ...

writer E. T. Bell (1883–1960). After a brief chapter on three ancient mathematicians, it covers the lives of about forty mathematicians who flourished in the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. The book is illustrated by mathematical discussions, with emphasis on mainstream mathematics. To keep the interest of readers, the book typically focuses on unusual or dramatic aspects of its subjects' lives. ''Men of Mathematics'' has inspired many young people, including

John Forbes Nash Jr. John Forbes Nash Jr. (June 13, 1928 – May 23, 2015) was an American mathematician who made fundamental contributions to game theory, real algebraic geometry, differential geometry, and partial differential equations. Nash and fellow game ...

, Julia Robinson, and

Freeman Dyson Freeman John Dyson (15 December 1923 – 28 February 2020) was an English-American theoretical physicist and mathematician known for his works in quantum field theory, astrophysics, random matrices, mathematical formulation of quantum m ...

, to become mathematicians. It is not intended as a rigorous history, and includes many anecdotal accounts.

Publication

In July 1935, Bell signed a contract with Simon and Schuster, for a book to be titled ''The Lives of Mathematicians''. He delivered the manuscript at the beginning of November 1935 as promised, but was unhappy when the publishers made him cut about a third of it (125,000 words), and, in order to tie in with their book ''Men of Art'' (by Thomas Craven), gave it the title ''Men of Mathematics'' which he did not like. He was also unhappy with how long they took to print it: even before he had received his first printed copy in March 1937, he had written and got into print another book, ''The Handmaiden of the Sciences''.

* Eudoxus (408–355 BC) *

Archimedes Archimedes of Syracuse (;; ) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor from the ancient city of Syracuse in Sicily. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists i ...

(287?–212 BC) * Descartes (1596–1650) * Fermat (1601–1665) *

Pascal Pascal, Pascal's or PASCAL may refer to: People and fictional characters * Pascal (given name), including a list of people with the name * Pascal (surname), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name ** Blaise Pascal, Frenc ...

(1623–1662) * Newton (1642–1727) *

Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of mathema ...

(1646–1716) *The Bernoullis (17th and 18th century) * Euler (1707–1783) * Lagrange (1736–1813) * Laplace (1749–1827) *

Monge Gaspard Monge, Comte de Péluse (9 May 1746 – 28 July 1818) was a French mathematician, commonly presented as the inventor of descriptive geometry, (the mathematical basis of) technical drawing, and the father of differential geometry. During ...

(1746–1818) * Fourier (1768–1830) * Poncelet (1788–1867) *

Gauss Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (; german: Gauß ; la, Carolus Fridericus Gauss; 30 April 177723 February 1855) was a German mathematician and physicist who made significant contributions to many fields in mathematics and science. Sometimes refer ...

(1777–1855) *

Cauchy Baron Augustin-Louis Cauchy (, ; ; 21 August 178923 May 1857) was a French mathematician, engineer, and physicist who made pioneering contributions to several branches of mathematics, including mathematical analysis and continuum mechanics. He w ...

(1789–1857) * Lobachevsky (1793–1856) *

Abel Abel ''Hábel''; ar, هابيل, Hābīl is a Biblical figure in the Book of Genesis within Abrahamic religions. He was the younger brother of Cain, and the younger son of Adam and Eve, the first couple in Biblical history. He was a shepherd w ...

(1802–1829) *

Hamilton Hamilton may refer to: People * Hamilton (name), a common British surname and occasional given name, usually of Scottish origin, including a list of persons with the surname ** The Duke of Hamilton, the premier peer of Scotland ** Lord Hamilto ...

(1805–1865) * Galois (1811–1832) *

Sylvester Sylvester or Silvester is a name derived from the Latin adjective ''silvestris'' meaning "wooded" or "wild", which derives from the noun ''silva'' meaning "woodland". Classical Latin spells this with ''i''. In Classical Latin, ''y'' represented ...

(1814–1897) * Cayley (1821–1895) * Weierstrass (1815–1897) * (1850–1891) *

Boole George Boole (; 2 November 1815 – 8 December 1864) was a largely self-taught English mathematician, philosopher, and logician, most of whose short career was spent as the first professor of mathematics at Queen's College, Cork in Irel ...

(1815–1864) *

Hermite Charles Hermite () FRS FRSE MIAS (24 December 1822 – 14 January 1901) was a French mathematician who did research concerning number theory, quadratic forms, invariant theory, orthogonal polynomials, elliptic functions, and algebra. Her ...

(1822–1901) * Kronecker (1823–1891) * Riemann (1826–1866) *

Kummer Kummer is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernhard Kummer (1897–1962), German Germanist * Clare Kummer (1873—1958), American composer, lyricist and playwright * Clarence Kummer (1899–1930), American jockey * Chri ...

(1810–1893) * Dedekind (1831–1916) * Poincaré (1854–1912) *

Cantor A cantor or chanter is a person who leads people in singing or sometimes in prayer. In formal Jewish worship, a cantor is a person who sings solo verses or passages to which the choir or congregation responds. In Judaism, a cantor sings and lead ...

(1845–1918)

Reception

''Men of Mathematics'' remains widely read. It has received general praise and some criticism. In the opinion of Ivor Grattan-Guinness the mathematics profession was poorly served by Bell's book: :...perhaps the most widely read modern book on the history of mathematics. As it is also one of the worst, it can be said to have done a considerable disservice to the profession. Eric Bell was criticized in 1983 for incorrectly ascribing the origin of spacetime to

Joseph Lagrange Joseph-Louis Lagrange (born Giuseppe Luigi LagrangiaHarry Bateman Harry Bateman FRS (29 May 1882 – 21 January 1946) was an English mathematician with a specialty in differential equations of mathematical physics. With Ebenezer Cunningham, he expanded the views of spacetime symmetry of Lorentz and Poinca ...

at Caltech,

Clifford Truesdell Clifford Ambrose Truesdell III (February 18, 1919 – January 14, 2000) was an American mathematician, natural philosopher, and historian of science. Life Truesdell was born in Los Angeles, California. After high school, he spent two years in E ...

wrote: :... ellwas admired for his science fiction and his ''Men of Mathematics''. I was shocked when, just a few years later, Walter Pitts told me the latter was nothing but a string of Hollywood scenarios; my own subsequent study of the sources has shown me that Pitts was right, and I now find the contents of that still popular book to be little more than rehashes enlivened by nasty gossip and banal or indecent fancy. An impression of the book was given by

Rebecca Goldstein Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (born February 23, 1950) is an American philosopher, novelist, and public intellectual. She has written ten books, both fiction and non-fiction. She holds a Ph.D. in philosophy of science from Princeton University, and ...

in her novel ''36 Arguments for the Existence of God''. Describing a character Cass Seltzer, she wrote on page 105: :Right now he was reading E. T. Bell’s ''Men of Mathematics'', which was the best yet, even though it had real mathematics in to slow him down. Some of these people sounded as if they had to be

changeling A changeling, also historically referred to as an auf or oaf, is a human-like creature found in folklore throughout Europe. A changeling was believed to be a fairy that had been left in place of a human (typically a child) stolen by other fair ...

s, non-human visitors from some other sphere, with powers so prodigious they burst the boundaries of developmental psychology, lisping out profundities while other children were playing with their toes. Theoretical physicist

called his encounter with the book one of the decisive moments in his early career path, noting its ability to present famous mathematicians not as saints, but as flawed individuals of mixed qualities who nevertheless accomplished great mathematics.Interview
with Quanta Magazine (June 2015)

Notes

{{Reflist

References

* Constance Reid (1993), ''The Search for E. T. Bell: Also Known as John Taine'', Mathematical Association of America.

External links

''Men of Mathematics'' (Volume 2)
on

archive.org The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

.
Reviews: ''Men of Mathematics''
from Goodreads. 1937 non-fiction books Biographies and autobiographies of mathematicians Works by Eric Temple Bell Simon & Schuster books

Publication

Contents

Reception

Notes

References

External links