Re: [HM] Number

Prof. Dr. Ivo Schneider (Ivo.Schneider@UniBw-Muenchen.de)
Mon, 31 May 1999 11:22:13 +0200

> ***
> Do you know of any very good essays or other treatments of domain
> of number (e.g., the major objects , operations, etc, of the whole,
> integer, rational, and real number systems) that would be serious
> and yet accessible? I'd like help in assembling a small number of
> very good pieces that would serve as a resource for a group of
> mathematicians with whom I am working to write an essay on number.
> In part, I want them to see some other people's takes on this domain,
> and in part, I also want them to see what examples of serious writing
> that is accessible to an educated, but not mathematically trained,
> reader might look like.
> ***

Here some suggestions from the already existing literature on the subject:

Christoph J. Scriba, The concept of number, Bibliographisches Institut
Mannheim/Zu"rich 1968 (= B.I-Hochschulskripten vol. 825/825a).

If you and your colleagues are willing to consider non-English literature
as well, there are two more German books:

Helmuth Gericke, Geschichte des Zahlbegriffs (history of the concept of
number), Bibliographisches Institut Mannheim/Wien/Zu"rich 1970 (=
B.I.-Hochschultaschenbu"cher vol. 172/172a) and

Johannes Tropfke, Geschichte der Elementarmathematik, fourth edition by
Kurt Vogel, Karin Reich, Helmuth Gericke, Walter de Gruyter Berlin/NY 1980,
especially chapter 1.3 "Der Zahlbegriff und seine Erweiterungen" of this
very carefully researched book.

Ivo Schneider