God Created the Integers: The Mathematical Breakthroughs that Changed History   Stephen Hawking Average Rating:

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Customer Reviews         1-5 of 28  |  NEXT >>

2008-12-16
I have a PhD in mathamatics so I understand the book and think it is great. Some people with a weak background in mathamatics may find the book difficult.

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2008-11-30
The book consists of short introductions by Hawking each followed by a famous or important doccument. To me the introductions were at least as enjoyable and informative as the rest - to the point and intresting.
The republished material is intresting on severeal levels. It shows the range of intrests as well as the flights of imagination possable for world class mathamaticians.
WARNING: The republished material in the book (not the introductions) is printed with an extremly small font. it will be difficult to read for even those with the best eyesight. The book is good enough even with this problem to get 4 stars our of 5.

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2008-11-02
To see what intrests a great physicist is, to me, of great intrest.

In God Created the Integers, Stephen Hawking describes not only what he sees as the key mathamatical breakthoughs of history, but also the lives of those who made these breakthoughs. Both are of great intrest.
In parituclar, Lebesgue's grounding the integral on "measure" reveals a pattern. Certain things are unmeasurable. Other things measure zero-- but still, they are something (not nothing). And certain collections, although arising from infinite architecural proccesses, have finite measure. As in the numbers themselves that result from intergration, by the enabling component of intergration-- measure-- the finite meets the infinite.

Since intergration is basic to physics (for example, as the context for the Born equation of quantum mechanics) I guess after reading this book I shouldnt be suprised that Stephen Hawking would tell us about this breakthough in very human and understandable terms.

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2008-04-18
Great compendium of (some of) the most important works in math. I would have added some authors but I think the selection is awesome. Clearly explained and orginal works are well refferenced.

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2008-01-12
My son asked for this book for Christmas, so I bought it for him. Looking inside, I saw it was way over my head. But he, being a math and computer genius, loved it.

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Editorial Review

"God created the integers," wrote mathematician Leopold Kronecker, "All the rest is the work of Man." In this collection of landmark mathematical works, editor Stephen Hawking has assembled the greatest feats humans have ever accomplished using just numbers and their brains. Each of the 17 sections opens with a historical introduction of the featured author, and proceeds to a faithful translation of their most famous work. While most mathematicians will already have complete editions of Isaac Newton's Principia or Georg Cantor's Contributions to the Founding of the Theory of Transfinite Numbers, this book is unique in presenting just the best bits of these and other theoretical works. The collection spans 2,500 years and covers a vast range of theories: the parallel postulate, Boolean logic, differential calculus, and the philosophy of the unknowable among them. Dense with numbers, formulae, and ideas, God Created the Integers is quite challenging, but Hawking rewards curious readers with a look at how mathematics has been built. In contrast to the towering physical edifices of great civilizations of the past, Hawking writes, "The greatest wonder of the modern world is our understanding." --Therese Littleton





If you like "God Created the Integers: The Mathematical Breakthroughs that Changed History", you might also like ...

A Briefer History of Time

The Universe in a Nutshell

The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe

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The Illustrated On The Shoulders of Giants