Encounter with Mathematics - 《数学概观》

Encounter with Mathematics - 《数学概观》

Thursday, October 27, 2005 10:57:39 PM

book

科学出版社于2001年翻译出版了瑞典人Lars Garding的书Encounter with Mathematics（中文名《数学概观》）——距离原书出版的日子——1977年——似乎晚了点，我去年买了一本，此书与另外一本有名的《什么是数学》有些类似，都是对数学概览式地、却也是严肃地介绍，谈及了数论、代数、拓朴、分析等内容，有一些评论和历史背景介绍。网上流传一个学生写的数学家轶事集《heroes in my heart／数学家的故事》，据说有很多人看了后悔自己大学没有学数学，有这个感觉并不奇怪，因为那只是一些挑选出来的趣闻，有的甚至未必真实——至少和我看到版本不同。而如果阅读了《数学概观》和《什么是数学》以后后悔自己没有去念数学系、想要更多地了解书中谈到的内容，这个感觉倒很可能是确实的。至少，你爱上的是数学，而不是数学家的怪事。

牛顿的《原理》1999年出版了Cohen英文翻译本，网上可以免费获得的都是拉丁文原版扫描，不知道看懂者几许，cohen的译本评价不错，关于《原理》本身，amazon.com上有个评论很有趣：

I suffered through college math all the way through differential equations, and I never really "got" it. I just memorized the steps and, when exam time rolled around, hoped I could remember which procedure went with which problem. The light finally came on in grad school, and _Principia_ was the switch. Reading the _Principia_ let me get underneath formal calculus and imbued it with a sense of wonder and soul. To see the theory set out step-by-step, to follow with Newton as he envisioned a new way of painting the world, gave me the ability to internalize the calculus, to say, finally, "Yes, that's intuitively right." I wish I'd read the _Principia_ much earlier in my education. It would have saved me a lot of pain.

不过连同导读部分，此书近1000页，要看上一段时间。