Boyer's A History of Mathematics

[Karin]

Someone, was it Jane?, recommended this to me along with a few others. We chose this one for dd to study in high school.

Which is the better way to study this--along with the corresponding times in history that you're doing in history, or in some system along with math in high school? Or by itself? It would be very uneven to do it the first way, but would involve a lot of jumping around to do it the second. However, I'd like it to tie into something if we could do it that way.

[Jane in NC]

Not sure what would be best, Karin. I used the book in a History of Mathematics class in college (one of several books for the course).

It might be fun to cover the occasional topic from it, aligning the material with your history. The problem, of course, is that your student might not be studying Calculus when you get to the chapters on Newton and Leibniz (end of 17th, early 18th centuries). So your daughter may not get the full value of the Boyer book, but in general it would offer some interesting insights into the history of math and physics.

The other thing is that a student of algebra might be intrigued to read about Khwarizmi or Francois Viete--an argument to align topics with your math work.

Maybe a little of both to offer another perspective on the journey?

Jane

[Karin]

Not sure what would be best, Karin. I used the book in a History of Mathematics class in college (one of several books for the course).

It might be fun to cover the occasional topic from it, aligning the material with your history. The problem, of course, is that your student might not be studying Calculus when you get to the chapters on Newton and Leibniz (end of 17th, early 18th centuries). So your daughter may not get the full value of the Boyer book, but in general it would offer some interesting insights into the history of math and physics.

The other thing is that a student of algebra might be intrigued to read about Khwarizmi or Francois Viete--an argument to align topics with your math work.

Maybe a little of both to offer another perspective on the journey?

Jane

Thanks. I think I'll try and line some of it up with what she's learning, but not until high school. But first I do want her to read the first chapters. She may not get the full benefit of it, but I think it will still help her.