Critics Corner

Reviews of books, websites, poster sets, movies, and other resources for learning and teaching the history of mathematics.

Cogwheels of the Mind: The Story of Venn Diagrams

An introduction to the work of Venn as well as the work of the author in extending some of Venn's results.

The Mathematics of the Heavens and the Earth

A comprehensive history of trigonometry from ancient times to the Renaissance.

History of Mathematical Symbolism and Terminology

Website containing much information on mathematical symbolism and terminology, as well as portraits of mathematicians from postage stamps.

Review of The Babylonian Theorem

The author constructs a possible mathematical path from the ancient Babylonians to Pythagoras, Euclid, and the ancient Greeks.

The Archimedes Website

This website devoted to miscellanea about Archimedes contains much interesting material about his life and times.

Thinking About Mathematics

An excellent book surveying the history of the philosophy of mathematics from the time of Plato to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Math through the Ages

Where does pi come from? Why should we be interested in negative numbers, or square roots of negative numbers? How did people ever figure out the quadratic formula? A truly wonderful reference for teachers at all levels.

Unexpected Links between Egyptian and Babylonian Mathematics

This book demonstrates the relationship between the mathematics in some recently discovered Babylonian tablets and some standard problems from Egyptian mathematics.

Historic Women of Mathematics

Poster picturing five famous women, from Hypatia to Grace Hopper.

Hypatia of Alexandria: Mathematician and Martyr

A biography of Hypatia in her times, which carefully distinguishes between the known facts of her life and the many speculations about her.