Book Review of Paul Nahin's "An Imaginary Tale: The Story of √-1"
Started by 6 years ago●4 replies●latest reply 6 years ago●355 viewsBook review of 'An Imaginary Tale'.pdf
Rick,
I loved this book (mine is the leftmost edition pictured in your informative post). Yeah, SQRT(-1) is to be avoided but this book is written in a very conversation manner. To me, the reviewer seems to be overdoing a bit. He doesn't seem to like Oliver Heaviside and surely Paul Nahin details Heaviside's extremely cantankerous nature. But let's not forget:
- Operational Calculus
- G = 0 and the 4 equation form of Maxwell's (20) Equations
- The incremental LCR (or LCG) model of a transmission line and the concomitant Telegrapher's Equation. William Thompson (Lord Kelvin) agreed on the capacitive element of T-Lines but in those days nobody was seeing an inductive component. I think it would have been a while before someone came along and gave that degree of insight in T-Lines which, by the way, helped avoid burning out any more trans-Atlantic cables.
There is a nice grouping of books out there on PI, e, i, Gamma, ...
They make for insightful reading. Another author I recommend is William Dunham especially with respect to Euler.
Coop
Hi Coop. Regarding Heaviside, I agree with you and I believe he deserves to be at least as famous as, say, Brad Pitt or George Clooney. To appreciate Heaviside's contributions see the "Innovations and Discoveries" section at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Heaviside
You mentioned "a nice grouping of books out there." For years I've had the following list on my computer:
"e - The Story of a Number" - Eli Maor
"A History of Pi" - Petr Beckman
"An Imaginary Tale - The Story of sqrt(-1)" - Paul J. Nahin
"The Nothing That Is" - Robert Kaplan
"Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" - Charles Seife
Don't forget "Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity" by David Foster Wallace
@Rick_Lyons and @jms_nh,
Very good suggestions. Here are a couple more (from my unread pile):
- Gamma, Exploring Euler's Constant, ISBN 9780691178103
- The Mystery of the Aleph: Mathematics, the Kabbalah, and the Search for Infinity by Amir D. Azcel ISBN 9780743422994
Coop