
A Brief History of Mathematics
Complete Series
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Narrated by:
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Marcus du Sautoy
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By:
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Marcus du Sautoy
About this listen
This ten-part history of mathematics reveals the personalities behind the calculations: the passions and rivalries of mathematicians struggling to get their ideas heard. Professor Marcus du Sautoy shows how these masters of abstraction find a role in the real world and proves that mathematics is the driving force behind modern science.
He explores the relationship between Newton and Leibniz, the men behind the calculus; looks at how the mathematics that Euler invented 200 years ago paved the way for the internet and discovers how Fourier transformed our understanding of heat, light and sound. In addition, he finds out how Galois' mathematics describes the particles that make up our universe, how Gaussian distribution underpins modern medicine, and how Riemann's maths helped Einstein with his theory of relativity. Finally, he introduces Cantor, who discovered infinite numbers; Poincaré, whose work gave rise to chaos theory; G.H. Hardy, whose work inspired the millions of codes that help to keep the internet safe, and Nicolas Bourbaki, the mathematician who never was.
The BBC Radio 4 series looking at the people who shaped modern mathematics, written and presented by Marcus du Sautoy.
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-
-
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Performance
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Story
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Performance
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Significant Figures
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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-
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Performance
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Math has a reputation for being inaccessible. People think that it requires a special gift or that comprehension is a matter of genes. Yet, the greatest mathematicians throughout history, from Rene Descartes to Alexander Grothendieck, have insisted that this is not the case.
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Top Poet among Mathemeticians
- By Kindle Customer on 05-27-14
By: David Berlinski
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The Great Unknown
- Seven Journeys to the Frontiers of Science
- By: Marcus du Sautoy
- Narrated by: Marcus du Sautoy
- Length: 14 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Ever since the dawn of civilization, we have been driven by a desire to know - to understand the physical world and the laws of nature. But are there limits to human knowledge? Are some things simply beyond the predictive powers of science? Or are those challenges the next big discovery waiting to happen?
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Science Museum in a Book (this is a compliment :)
- By Mike on 04-26-17
By: Marcus du Sautoy
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The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved
- How Mathematical Genius Discovered the Language of Symmetry
- By: Mario Livio
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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For thousands of years mathematicians solved progressively more difficult algebraic equations, until they encountered the quintic equation, which resisted solution for three centuries. Working independently, two prodigies ultimately proved that the quintic cannot be solved by a simple formula. The first popular account of the mathematics of symmetry and order, The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved is told not through abstract formulas but in a beautifully written and dramatic account of the lives and work of some of the greatest and most intriguing mathematicians in history.
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Historical Perspective Appreciated
- By Michael Hanrahan on 01-22-20
By: Mario Livio
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A Mind for Numbers
- How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra)
- By: Barbara Oakley PhD
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In A Mind for Numbers, Dr. Oakley lets us in on the secrets to learning effectively - secrets that even dedicated and successful students wish they’d known earlier. Contrary to popular belief, math requires creative, as well as analytical, thinking. Most people think that there’s only one way to do a problem, when in actuality, there are often a number of different solutions - you just need the creativity to see them.
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Not quite what you expect
- By Sean P Ruggier on 07-20-22
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The Universe Speaks in Numbers
- How Modern Math Reveals Nature's Deepest Secrets
- By: Graham Farmelo
- Narrated by: Hugh Kermode
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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One of the great insights of science is that the universe has an underlying order. The supreme goal of physicists is to understand this order through laws that describe the behavior of the most basic particles and the forces between them. For centuries, we have searched for these laws by studying the results of experiments. Since the 1970s, however, experiments at the world's most powerful atom-smashers have offered few new clues. So some of the world's leading physicists have looked to a different source of insight: modern mathematics.
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Great story and narration, but lacks rigor...
- By James S. on 05-31-19
By: Graham Farmelo
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Thinking Better
- The Art of the Shortcut in Math and Life
- By: Marcus Du Sautoy
- Narrated by: Mark Elstob
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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We are often told that hard work is the key to success. But success isn’t about hard work - it’s about shortcuts. Shortcuts allow us to solve one problem quickly so that we can tackle an even bigger one. They make us capable of doing great things. And according to Marcus du Sautoy, math is the very art of the shortcut. Thinking Better is a celebration of how math lets us do more with less.
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Very difficult to flow without diagrams
- By Khaled on 11-03-21
By: Marcus Du Sautoy
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The Signal and the Noise
- Why So Many Predictions Fail - but Some Don't
- By: Nate Silver
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Nate Silver built an innovative system for predicting baseball performance, predicted the 2008 election within a hair’s breadth, and became a national sensation as a blogger - all by the time he was 30. He solidified his standing as the nation's foremost political forecaster with his near perfect prediction of the 2012 election. Silver is the founder and editor in chief of the website FiveThirtyEight. Drawing on his own groundbreaking work, Silver examines the world of prediction, investigating how we can distinguish a true signal from a universe of noisy data.
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Learn About Statistics Without All The Math
- By Scott Fabel on 03-09-13
By: Nate Silver
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The Secret Lives of Numbers
- A Hidden History of Math’s Unsung Trailblazers
- By: Kate Kitagawa, Timothy Revell
- Narrated by: Daphne Kouma
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Mathematics shapes almost everything we do. But despite its reputation as the study of fundamental truths, the stories we have been told about it are wrong—warped like the sixteenth-century map that enlarged Europe at the expense of Africa, Asia and the Americas. In The Secret Lives of Numbers, renowned math historian Kate Kitagawa and journalist Timothy Revell make the case that the history of math is infinitely deeper, broader, and richer than the narrative we think we know.
By: Kate Kitagawa, and others
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In Our Time: 25 Theories and Thinkers in the History of Mathematics
- A BBC Radio 4 Collection
- By: Melvyn Bragg
- Narrated by: Melvyn Bragg, Various
- Length: 18 hrs and 30 mins
- Original Recording
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Beginning with three introductory episodes, this specially curated collection explores 25 of the most important individuals, ideas and discoveries that have transformed our understanding of mathematics over the past 5,000 years. We learn how Indian mathematics provided the foundations for much of our modern thinking, discover why Euclid's Elements is the most influential textbook ever written and hear of the epic feud between Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz over who invented calculus.
By: Melvyn Bragg
Short & Sweet!
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Wonderful
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The simplicity in which the author explains advanced concepts that our entire world are built upon makes this book top tier.
The simplicity in which the author explains advanced concepts that our entire world are built upon makes this book top tier
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The shoulders of mathematicians
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Brief but informative
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A pleasing overview
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Just give it a listen!
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Sautoy is a Great Math Story Teller
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My one complaint is the repeated "title card" playing throughout. This is clearly due to the fact it was originally presented in another, episodic, format. This could have been removed in editing before being presented as a single audiobook without any loss of information and the individual episodes split into "Chapters" for those who wish easier navigation.
A History... Starting with Calculus
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Superb
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