Infinitesimal : how a dangerous mathematical theory shaped the modern world / Amir Alexander.
Publication details: London : Oneworld, 2014.Description: 352 pages : illustrations ; 24 cmISBN:- 9781780745329 (hardback)
- 178074532X (hardback)
- 511 23
Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item reserves | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Book | Melbourne Athenaeum Library | Non-Fiction | 511 AMI | Available | 058047 |
Total reserves: 0
Includes bibliographical references and index.
On August 10, 1632, five leading Jesuits convened in a sombre Roman palazzo to pass judgment on a simple idea: that a continuous line is composed of distinct and limitlessly tiny parts. The doctrine would become the foundation of calculus, but on that fateful day the judges ruled that it was forbidden. With the stroke of a pen they set off a war for the soul of the modern world. Amir Alexander takes us from the bloody religious strife of the sixteenth century to the battlefields of the English civil war and the fierce confrontations between leading thinkers like Galileo and Hobbes.