Math Horizons

ISSN: 1072-4117 (Print) 1947-6213 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/umho20

Significant Figures: The Lives and Work of Great

Mathematicians

Beth Skubak Wolf

To cite this article: Beth Skubak Wolf (2018) Significant Figures: The Lives and Work of Great
Mathematicians, Math Horizons, 25:3, 29-29, DOI: 10.1080/10724117.2018.1424465

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10724117.2018.1424465

Published online: 25 Jan 2018.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 80

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=umho20
Significant Figures: their ideas, such as
Georg Cantor for his

The Lives and

multiple infinities and
Nikolai Lobachevsky
for his non-Euclidean
Work of Great geometry. And some
faced other difficulties,
Mathematicians such as Emmy
Noether, who single-
Reviewed by Beth Skubak Wolf handedly created

I
a new field within
n Significant Figures (Basic Books, 2017), popular
abstract algebra, even
math and science writer Ian Stewart presents the
though she was frequently held back, as women
lives and work of 25 important mathematicians,
were largely excluded from university positions at
and in doing so, presents a history of mathematics
that time.
itself. It is by no means a complete history, and
Stewart admits that he omitted many significant
any reader looking for mathematical details will need
mathematicians, and he made his choices in the hope
to look elsewhere. But this book provides an interest-
of achieving balance—he presents mathematicians both
ing and insightful look into how mathematical think-
male and female, from many different locations and
ing has evolved over the millennia, into ideas that
cultures, and from varying times in the past 2,500 years.
sparked new areas of the subject, and, of course, into
Though Stewart excluded most mathematical detail
the lives of several significant figures whose ground-
in order to keep the book accessible, he does not shy
breaking work changed the course of mathematics.
away from deep topics. The chapters devoted to Kurt
The book presents short biographies of mathe-
Gödel and Alan Turing are particularly enjoyable and
maticians from ancient Greece to near-present day.
include a great explanation of the ideas of incomplete-
Some are familiar mathematical giants, such as
ness and undecidability that require no background
Archimedes, Leonhard Euler, and Carl Friedrich
other than a willingness to read carefully and think
Gauss. Others are lesser-known scholars, too often
logically. Readers interested in computer science will
left out of conventional histories of western math-
be further pleased to find a chapter on Augusta Ada
ematics: Liu Hui, Muhammad al-Khwarizmi, and
King (Ada Lovelace), often considered to be the first
Madhava of Sangamagrama.
computer programmer.
Stewart describes the work of each mathematician
The book is interesting, easy to read, and rarely
and gives readers a good sense of how and why their
dry—except for the dry humor sprinkled throughout.
contributions were important—and in particular, how
(After all, Stewart is British, and can even claim the
their work is connected to that of the other figures
famous comic fantasy writer Terry Pratchett as a
in the book. The descriptions of their lives outside
coauthor.)
of their work provide a useful sense of the time and
I highly recommend Significant Figures to readers
culture in which they lived, and these details are often
new to the field, to more experienced mathematicians
quite interesting and entertaining. (Did you know that
looking for an enjoyable history of the subject, and to
Isaac Newton may have invented the cat flap? Or that
anyone hoping to gain some insight into the lives and
Joseph Fourier is thought to be the first to suggest
minds of some of history’s greatest thinkers. As the
the greenhouse effect of Earth’s atmosphere?)
author concludes, these significant figures are diverse
Furthermore, most major areas of mathematics are
in many ways, yet share one major trait: They were
represented, so the book can serve as a primer for
driven to explore the mathematics they loved. n
undergraduates looking to get a broad sense of what
studying advanced mathematics might entail.
Beth Skubak Wolf teaches at the University of
All of the profiled mathematicians were trailblazers.
Michigan in Ann Arbor. When she’s not working,
Évariste Galois tackled known problems using radical-
she can usually be found with her nose in a book.
ly new methods. David Hilbert set out his famous 23
problems, which set the tone for much of the math-
ematics of the 20th century. Some were ridiculed for 10.1080/10724117.2018.1424465

www.maa.org/mathhorizons : : Math Horizons : : February 2018 29