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Home > Publications > Published books > Published Books of researchers of SPHERE: 2015-... > Mathematical Commentaries in the Ancient World. A Global Perspective

Mathematical Commentaries in the Ancient World. A Global Perspective





Karine Chemla, Glenn W. Most, (dir.)













“This is the first book-length analysis of the techniques and procedures of ancient mathematical commentaries. It focuses on examples in Chinese, Sanskrit, Akkadian and Sumerian, and Ancient Greek, presenting the general issues by constant detailed reference to these commentaries, of which substantial extracts are included in the original languages and in translation, sometimes for the first time. This makes the issues accessible to readers without specialized training in mathematics or in the languages involved. The result is a much richer understanding than was hitherto possible of the crucial role of commentaries in the history of mathematics in four different linguistic areas, of the nature of mathematical commentaries in general, of the contribution that the study of mathematical commentaries can make to the history of science and to the study of commentaries in general, and of the ways in which mathematical commentaries are like and unlike other kinds of commentaries.”


:: Cambridge University Press

:: June 2022

:: ISBN: 9781108884488

:: DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108884488

Subjects: Mathematics, History of Mathematics, History, History of Ideas and Intellectual History




TABLE OF CONTENTS


Contents, pp v-v

Figures, pp vi-viii

Tables, pp ix-ix

Contributors, pp x-x

Introduction : Why Study Mathematical Commentaries?, p. 1-50

Commentators at Work

Comparing Commentaries

Index of Proper Names, pp. 434-437

Index of Subjects, pp. 438-457

Index of Titles of Cited Texts, pp. 458-464