Cambridge Library Collection - Mathematics

The genius of Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) and the novelty of his work (published in Latin, German, and occasionally French) in areas as diverse as number theory, probability and astronomy were already widely acknowledged during his lifetime. But it took another three generations of mathematicians to reveal the true extent of his output as they studied Gauss' extensive unpublished papers and his voluminous correspondence. This posthumous twelve-volume collection of Gauss' complete works, published between 1863 and 1933, marks the culmination of their efforts and provides a fascinating account of one of the great scientific minds of the nineteenth century. An invaluable source in tracing Gauss' development is his scientific diary, which was only discovered in 1898. Volume 10 Part I, published in 1917, contains a photographic reproduction of this manuscript and a detailed commentary, together with many letters about pure mathematics, and shorter works including a preface to Piazzi.

The genius of Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) and the novelty of his work (published in Latin, German, and occasionally French) in areas as diverse as number theory, probability and astronomy were already widely acknowledged during his lifetime. But it took another three generations of mathematicians to reveal the true extent of his output as they studied Gauss' extensive unpublished papers and his voluminous correspondence. This posthumous twelve-volume collection of Gauss' complete works, published between 1863 and 1933, marks the culmination of their efforts and provides a fascinating account of one of the great scientific minds of the nineteenth century. At the suggestion of Felix Klein, Gauss' twentieth-century successors planned a scientific biography consisting of essays covering the various areas in which he worked. Volume 10, Part II, (dated 1922–33) contains seven contributions, individually paginated and originally sold separately, relating to pure mathematics, probability

The genius of Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) and the novelty of his work (published in Latin, German, and occasionally French) in areas as diverse as number theory, probability and astronomy were already widely acknowledged during his lifetime. But it took another three generations of mathematicians to reveal the true extent of his output as they studied Gauss' extensive unpublished papers and his voluminous correspondence. This posthumous twelve-volume collection of Gauss' complete works, published between 1863 and 1933, marks the culmination of their efforts and provides a fascinating account of one of the great scientific minds of the nineteenth century. Volume 11 Part I, which appeared in 1927, supplements volumes 5 to 7 with additional material on physics (particularly magnetism) and both theoretical and practical astronomy. It also contains a substantial amount of scientific correspondence with scholars including Schumacher, Olbers and Bessel.

The genius of Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) and the novelty of his work (published in Latin, German, and occasionally French) in areas as diverse as number theory, probability and astronomy were already widely acknowledged during his lifetime. But it took another three generations of mathematicians to reveal the true extent of his output as they studied Gauss' extensive unpublished papers and his voluminous correspondence. This posthumous twelve-volume collection of Gauss' complete works, published between 1863 and 1933, marks the culmination of their efforts and provides a fascinating account of one of the great scientific minds of the nineteenth century. At the suggestion of Felix Klein, Gauss' twentieth-century successors planned a scientific biography consisting of essays covering the various areas in which he worked. Volume 11, Part II (dated 1924–9) contains three contributions, individually paginated and originally sold separately, relating to geodesy, physics and astronomy.

In 1808, Napoleon I (1769–1821), emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815, commissioned a series of official reports on the progress of scientific research since 1789. First published in 1810, this report on the current state of mathematics was written by French mathematician and astronomer Jean-Baptiste Joseph Delambre (1749–1822). A Professor at the Collège de France and Director of the Paris Observatory, Delambre was appointed permanent secretary for the mathematical sciences of the Academy of Science in 1801. As such, he was charged with examining the state of mathematics in higher educational establishments, and with presenting an overview of the progress accomplished during Napoleon's reign in the fields of geometry, algebra, astronomy and geography. This report includes a chapter on the metric system, which Delambre was instrumental in determining via the measurement of the meridian between the north pole and the equator in 1792.

Described by one reviewer as 'one of the most perfect books ever written on theoretical astronomy', this work in Latin by the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855), the 'Prince of Mathematicians', derived from his attempt to solve an astronomical puzzle: where in the heavens would the dwarf planet Ceres, first sighted in 1801, reappear? Gauss' predicted position was correct to within half a degree, and this led him to develop a streamlined and sophisticated method of calculating the effect of the larger planets and the sun on the orbits of planetoids, which he published in 1809. As well as providing a tool for astronomers, Gauss' method also offered a way of reducing inaccuracy of calculations arising from measurement error; the primacy of this discovery was however disputed between him and the French mathematician Legendre, whose Essai sur la théorie des nombres is also reissued in this series.

John Leigh Smeathman Hatton (1865–1933) was a British mathematician and educator. He worked for 40 years at a pioneering educational project in East London that began as the People's Palace and eventually became Queen Mary College in the University of London. Hatton served as its Principal from 1908 to 1933. This book, published in 1920, explores the relationship between imaginary and real non-Euclidean geometry through graphical representations of imaginaries under a variety of conventions. This relationship is of importance as points with complex determining elements are present in both imaginary and real geometry. Hatton uses concepts including the use of co-ordinate methods to develop and illustrate this relationship, and concentrates on the idea that the only differences between real and imaginary points exist solely in relation to other points. This clearly written volume exemplifies the type of non-Euclidean geometry research current at the time of publication.

Henry Frederick Baker (1866–1956) was a renowned British mathematician specialising in algebraic geometry. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1898 and appointed the Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry in the University of Cambridge in 1914. First published between 1922 and 1925, the six-volume Principles of Geometry was a synthesis of Baker's lecture series on geometry and was the first British work on geometry to use axiomatic methods without the use of co-ordinates. The first four volumes describe the projective geometry of space of between two and five dimensions, with the last two volumes reflecting Baker's later research interests in the birational theory of surfaces. The work as a whole provides a detailed insight into the geometry which was developing at the time of publication.