San Antonio College Library

Chronicles the history of counting and calculating from the time of cave dwellers to the late twentieth century, examining how different cultures used numbers to solve basic problems related to their everyday needs.

"In his successor and companion volume to Gnomon: From Pharaohs to Fractals, Midhat Gazale takes us on a journey from the ancient worlds of the Egyptians, the Mesopotamians, the Mayas, the Greeks, the Hindus, up to the Arab invasion of Europe and the Renaissance. Our guide introduces us to some of the most fascinating and ingenious characters in mathematical history, from Ahmes the Egyptian scribe (whose efforts helped preserve some of the mathematical...

A humor-inflected history of the of the number one, covering military applications in ancient Rome, the measurement of distances in India, and the decimal system created by Leibnitz.