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082			_a516.204 _bRIC
100			_aRicheson, David S.
245			_aTales of impossibility : the 2000-year quest to solve the mathematical problems of antiquity
260			_bPrinceton University Press, _c2019 _aNew Jersey :
300			_axii, 436 p. ; _bill., _c20 cm
365			_b22.95 _cUSD _d85.50
490			_aEBSCOhost ebooks online
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references and index.
520			_aA comprehensive look at four of the most famous problems in mathematicsTales of Impossibility recounts the intriguing story of the renowned problems of antiquity, four of the most famous and studied questions in the history of mathematics. First posed by the ancient Greeks, these compass and straightedge problems--squaring the circle, trisecting an angle, doubling the cube, and inscribing regular polygons in a circle--have served as ever-present muses for mathematicians for more than two millennia. David Richeson follows the trail of these problems to show that ultimately their proofs--demonstrating the impossibility of solving them using only a compass and straightedge--depended on and resulted in the growth of mathematics.Richeson investigates how celebrated luminaries, including Euclid, Archimedes, Viète, Descartes, Newton, and Gauss, labored to understand these problems and how many major mathematical discoveries were related to their explorations. Although the problems were based in geometry, their resolutions were not, and had to wait until the nineteenth century, when mathematicians had developed the theory of real and complex numbers, analytic geometry, algebra, and calculus. Pierre Wantzel, a little-known mathematician, and Ferdinand von Lindemann, through his work on pi, finally determined the problems were impossible to solve. Along the way, Richeson provides entertaining anecdotes connected to the problems, such as how the Indiana state legislature passed a bill setting an incorrect value for pi and how Leonardo da Vinci made elegant contributions in his own study of these problems.Taking readers from the classical period to the present, Tales of Impossibility chronicles how four unsolvable problems have captivated mathematical thinking for centuries.
650			_aGeometry Famous problems
650			_aMathematisches Problem
650			_aGeometrie Problemes classiques
650			_aRecreations
650			_aGames
650			_a Archimeded of Syracuse
650			_aBinomial theorem
650			_a Basel problem
650			_aCasus irreducibilis
650			_a De Moivre's Doubling the cube
650			_a Euclid
650			_a Eudoxes of Cridus
650			_aEuler's phi function
650			_aFermat's last theorem
650			_a Galois theory
650			_aJohnson, Crokett
650			_aLocking compass
650			_aMachin's formula
650			_aMethod of exhaustion
650			_aNeusis
650			_aPythagorean theorem
650			_aQuadratic formula
650			_aSquaring the circle
650			_a Trisecting the angle
650			_aWantzel's theorem
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