Fink K. A Brief History of Mathematics. 1903.
Fink K. A Brief History of Mathematics. - Open Court, 1903. - 333 p.
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This volume is produced from digital images from the Cornell University Library Historical Mathematics Monographs collection.
If the history of a science possesses value for every one whom calling or inclination brings into closer relations to it, —if the knowledge of this history is imperative for all who have influence in the further development of scientific principles or the methods of employing them to advantage, then acquaintance with the rise and growth of a branch of science is especially important to the man who wishes to teach the elements of this science or to penetrate as a student into its higher realms.
The following history of elementary mathematics is intended to give students of mathematics an historical survey of the elementary parts of this science and to furnish the teacher of the elements opportunity, with little expenditure of time, to review connectedly points for the most part long familiar to him and to otiose them in his teaching in suitable comments. The enlivening influence of historical remarks upon this elementary instruction has never been disputed. Indeed there are text-books for the elements of mathematics which devote considerable space to the history of the science in the way of special notes. It is certainly desirable that instead of scattered historical references there should be offered a connected presentation of the history of elementary mathematics, not one intended for the use of scholars, not as an equivalent for the great works upon the history of mathematics, but only as a first picture, with fundamental tones clearly sustained, of the principal results of the investigation of mathematical history.
