No comments about The Open Economy Macromodel: Past, Present and Future.

1 comments about Key Papers in the Development of Coding Theory (Ieee Press Selected Reprint Series).

1. A collection of selected famous coding theory papers written in 1974. Easier than collecting the papers individually, plus Berlekamp's comments make interesting reading.

1 comments about Foundations of Diatonic Theory: A Mathematically Based Approach to Music Fundamentals.

1. Part of the Mathematics Across the Curriculum series, Foundations of Diatonic Theory IS mathematically based, but only requires basic math skills. While it claims to serve as a intro or basic music theory text, the first few chapters do not introduce interval names and thus require prior knowledge. On the other hand, it introduces relatively little mathematical skills such as greatest common divisor and coprime, avoiding modulo 12.
   
   This instructional text is based on the latest papers in diatonic set theory. For people who took a music theory intro class and left with more questions than they began, this book is likely what they want. Why major and minor? Why the modes? Why the diatonic scale? Why the diatonic triads and seventh chords? The book leads readers through the discovery of properties of these collections which help explain their general, and some specific, uses and qualities.

No comments about Music Theory and Mathematics: Chords, Collections, and Transformations (Eastman Studies in Music) (Eastman Studies in Music).

1 comments about The Great Mathematicians.

1. The Great Mathematicians is a conversational text (no graphs, charts, or formulas) about mathematicians whose ideas have influenced or touched us into the 20th century. Written in the 1930's, this edition is a 1993 reprint, so I figure that the author's ideas have a sort of permanency, also.

   Turnbull discusses nine immortal mathematicians and mentions dozens of others. In the 1930s he clearly had a grasp on the directions of mathematics, but his slant definitely is toward geometry and calculus. He does not even mention mathematical logicians.

   I liked the personal descriptions of the lives of mathematicians. Yet this book only begins to give a slant on the history of development of mathematics, the cross currents of the field. This book would be an interesting supplement to a college level or high school honors class, but the students will not emerge with a time-line of mathematical development.

   Or, you could read this for general interest and still get something from it.

No comments about Numerical Control: Making a New Technology (Oxford Series on Advanced Manufacturing).

No comments about A Survey of Mathematics: Elementary Concepts and Their Historical Development.

5 comments about IF THIS HOUSE COULD TALK...: Historic Homes, Extraordinary Americans.

1. This fabulous book contains interesting histories and illustrations of the homes of famous Americans. I especially liked the sections on the historical California homes, since my husband and I have visited several of them. As a student of both archicture and history, this book inspired me to plan future visits to each of the homes described. Highly recommended!



2. This book has immediately become a favorite of my wife and I. We jump from chapter to chapter, revisiting homes we have actually been to and learning additional tidbits about them. As well, we are delving into homes we now hope to visit in the future. The pictures are well-chosen and attractive and the author's choice of text brings these dwellings to life. We recommend this "work of historic art" to everyone, no matter their level of interest in this area.



3. Through history, art, architecture and more, you journey through these extraordinary Americans lives, and their homes. Elizabeth Smith Brownstein takes you on a facinating tour of 26 homes including Presidential homes, Plantations, Haunted Houses, famous Women's homes, a home of the future and more. What a great book for treasured collections, book clubs, and anyone intersted in America, history and artchitecture.



4. I had the pleasure of meeting the author on a flight from Frankfurt to Rome last summer. I bought and read this book with great enthusiasm. The author is brilliant and funny. The book takes us to various personalities, times and eras in the historical evolution of our country as these homes are used as the medium to demonstrate the message of the time and culture. It is eloquently written in unpretensious prose. I must read.



5. Picture book about historic homes and their owners is fun and well done but inconsequential. Interesting groupings lends organization, but reads like a PBS anthology retrospective.
   
   Good pictures and great production values make the book an eyeworthy treat.

No comments about Development of modern mathematics.

5 comments about Men of Mathematics.

1. Apart from the glaring historical inaccuracies (mathematically speaking) with which E. T. Bell embellished his book, I must say that I found the pervasive anti-Christian sarcasm to be very offensive and tiresome. E. T. Bell seems to reserve a special disliking for Blaise Pascal and Augustin-Louis Cauchy... Pascal is made out to be a mentally ill religious lunatic and Cauchy to be an eccentric and bigoted religious fanatic. Bell sacrifices truth on the altar of propaganda especially in the section on Evariste Galois - here he takes particular pains to portay the great mathematician Cauchy to be a fool and a religious bigot while Galois (a very unstable, self-destructive character if there ever was one) is made out to be the martyred hero!



2. My family has produced several mathematicians, but I am not one of them. However, this book is extremely interesting- just do as I did and skim right over the math.



3. From page 86 of the Touchstone edition: "The PENSEES and the PROVICINCIAL LETTERS, apart from their literary excellences, appeal principally to a type of mind that is rapidly becoming extinct." Even though I am here reading that my mind is rapidly becoming extinct, I still got a huge kick out of Bell's literary caricature of Pascal. Bell treats Pascal and his proponents with a kind of highlander tough love: giving us a dose of what bootcamp with kilts is probably like. lol. So anyway, I don't find Bell's writing in his literary portrait of Pascal at all anti-Christian. On the contrary, I find Bell a breath of fresh air. He obviously far more than means well. For he provides a more or less impartial commentary on Pascal in his curmudgeonly, jocular, celtic way.



4. Its a very good book on review of mathematics. It deals with evolution of mathematics as a whole. It is definitely not for general public.



5. This is a book containing biographies of great mathematicians. It starts with Zeno and ends with Cantor. This was the book that I read when I was a small boy and it whetted my appetite for wanting to know more about mathematics and mathematicians. It is written in Bell's inimitable flippant, humorous and engaging style. You may not agree with everything he says but what he says is certainly interesting and even fascinating. Want to get someone interested in math? Don't give him a dense math text-you turn him off-but introduce him to this book.