A Century of Mathematics: Through the Eyes of the Monthly

Front Cover
John Ewing
Cambridge University Press, Sep 5, 1996 - Mathematics - 335 pages
This is the story of American mathematics during the past century. It contains articles and excerpts from a century of the American Mathematical Monthly, giving the reader an opportunity to skim all one hundred volumes of this popular mathematics magazine without actually opening them. It samples mathematics year by year and decade by decade. The reader can glimpse the mathematical community at the turn of the century, the controversy about Einstein and relativity, the debates about formalism in logic, the immigration of mathematicians from Europe, and the frantic effort to organize as the war began. More recent articles deal with the advent of computers and the changes they brought, and with some of the triumphs of modern research.
 

Contents

Introduction B F FINKEL AND J M COLAW
5
A Popular Account of Some New Fields of Thought in Mathematics
11
The Tenth Perfect Number R E POWERS
19
The Mathematical Association of America EDITORS
25
The Significance of Mathematics E R HEDRICK
31
Mathematicians and Music R C ARCHIBALD
41
American Contributions to Mathematical Symbolism FLORIAN CAJORI
47
How Can Interest in Calculus Be Increased? ROSCOE WOODS
57
The Nature of Mathematical Proof R L WILDER
165
A Manual for Young Teachers of Mathematics H E BUCHANAN
175
R FORD
181
The Scholar in a Scientific World C C MACDUFFEE
187
Note on a Paper L S Johnston IVAN NIVEN
193
A Symmetrical Notation for Numbers C E SHANNON
201
A HalfCentury of Mathematics HERMANN WEYL
213
A PrimeRepresenting Function E M WRIGHT
221

Recent Publications The Pastures of Wonder Cassius Jackson Keyser
65
Recent Publications Contributions to the History of Determinants Sir Thomas Muir
75
Functions of the Association J W YOUNG
83
A Simple Continuous Function with a Finite Derivative at No Point
91
A Proof of the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra R P BOAS JR
97
On the Definition of ei G B PRICE
105
On the Modern Development of Celestial Mechanics C L SIEGEL
135
The Addition Formulas for the Sine and Cosine E J MCSHANE
141
The Migration of Mathematicians ARNOLD DRESDEN
147
Adjustments in Mathematics to the Impact of War G B PRICE
155
If This Be Treason R P Boas Jr
229
The Recurrence Theorem FRED B WRIGHT
241
Recent Developments in Mathematics JEAN Dieudonné
247
Female Mathematicians Where Are You? VIOLET H LARNEY
281
The Serre Conjecture W H GUSTAFSON P R HALMOS
289
Proofs that Σ1p Diverges CHARLES VANDEN EYNDEN
295
Can We Make Mathematics Intelligible? R P Boas
303
The Disk with the College Education HERBERT S WILF
309
INDEX OF NAMES
317
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