Elena Anne Marchisotto

by Ivor Grattan-Guinness One of the distortions in most kinds of history is an imbalance between the study devoted to major figures and to lesser ones, concerning both achievements and influence: the Great Ones may be studied to death while the others are overly ignored and thereby remain underrated. In my own work in the history of mathematics I have noted at least a score of outstanding candidates for neglect, of whom Mario Pieri (1860–1913) is one. A most able contributor to geometry, arithmetic and mathematical analysis, and mat- matical logic during his rather short life, his work and its legacy are not well known. The main reason is that Pieri worked “in the shadow of giants,” to quote one of the authors 1 of this volume. Born into a scholarly family in Lucca, Pieri was educated briefly at the University of Bologna and principally at the prestigious Scuola Normale Superiore, in Pisa; under the influence of Luigi Bianchi (1856–1928) he wrote there his doctoral dissertations on al-braic and differential geometry. During his twenties came appointments in Turin, first at the military academy and then also at the university, where he fell under the sway of Corrado Segre (1863–1924) in algebraic geometry, and Giuseppe Peano (1858–1932) in the foundations of arithmetic, mathematical analysis, and mathematical logic. From 1900 to 1908 he held a chair at the University of Catania before moving to Parma, where he died from cancer. A list of errata can be found on the author Smith’s personal webpage.

Winner of the 1983 National Book Award!"…a perfectly marvelous book about the Queen of Sciences, from which one will get a real feeling for what mathematicians do and who they are. The exposition is clear and full of wit and humor..." - The New Yorker (1983 National Book Award edition)Mathematics has been a human activity for thousands of years. Yet only a few people from the vast population of users are professional mathematicians, who create, teach, foster, and apply it in a variety of situations. The authors of this book believe that it should be possible for these professional mathematicians to explain to non-professionals what they do, what they say they are doing, and why the world should support them at it. They also believe that mathematics should be taught to non-mathematics majors in such a way as to instill an appreciation of the power and beauty of mathematics. Many people from around the world have told the authors that they have done precisely that with the first edition and they have encouraged publication of this revised edition complete with exercises for helping students to demonstrate their understanding. This edition of the book should find a new generation of general readers and students who would like to know what mathematics is all about. It will prove invaluable as a course text for a general mathematics appreciation course, one in which the student can combine an appreciation for the esthetics with some satisfying and revealing applications. The text is ideal for 1) a GE course for Liberal Arts students 2) a Capstone course for perspective teachers 3) a writing course for mathematics teachers. A wealth of customizable online course materials for the book can be obtained from Elena Anne Marchisotto ([email protected]) upon request.