A. W. F. EDWARDS
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199656592
- eISBN:
- 9780191748059
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199656592.003.0008
- Subject:
- Mathematics, Combinatorics / Graph Theory / Discrete Mathematics, History of Mathematics
The arithmetical triangle is the most famous of all number patterns. Apparently a simple listing of the binomial coefficients, it contains the triangular and pyramidal numbers of ancient Greece, the ...
More
The arithmetical triangle is the most famous of all number patterns. Apparently a simple listing of the binomial coefficients, it contains the triangular and pyramidal numbers of ancient Greece, the combinatorial numbers that arose in the Hindu studies of arrangements and selections, and (barely concealed) the Fibonacci numbers from medieval Italy. It reveals patterns that delight the eye, raises questions that tax the number-theorists, and amongst the ‘… coefficients, there are so many relations present that when someone finds a new identity, there aren’t many people who get excited about it any more, except the discoverer!’Less
The arithmetical triangle is the most famous of all number patterns. Apparently a simple listing of the binomial coefficients, it contains the triangular and pyramidal numbers of ancient Greece, the combinatorial numbers that arose in the Hindu studies of arrangements and selections, and (barely concealed) the Fibonacci numbers from medieval Italy. It reveals patterns that delight the eye, raises questions that tax the number-theorists, and amongst the ‘… coefficients, there are so many relations present that when someone finds a new identity, there aren’t many people who get excited about it any more, except the discoverer!’
Robin Wilson and John J. Watkins (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199656592
- eISBN:
- 9780191748059
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199656592.001.0001
- Subject:
- Mathematics, Combinatorics / Graph Theory / Discrete Mathematics, History of Mathematics
The history of mathematics is a well-studied and vibrant area of research, with books and scholarly articles published on various aspects of the subject. Yet, the history of combinatorics seems to ...
More
The history of mathematics is a well-studied and vibrant area of research, with books and scholarly articles published on various aspects of the subject. Yet, the history of combinatorics seems to have been largely overlooked. This book goes some way to redress this and serves two main purposes: it constitutes the first book-length survey of the history of combinatorics, and it assembles, for the first time in a single source, researches on the history of combinatorics that would otherwise be inaccessible to the general reader. Individual chapters have been contributed by sixteen experts. The book opens with an introduction to two thousand years of combinatorics. This is followed by seven chapters on early combinatorics, leading from Indian and Chinese writings on permutations to late-Renaissance publications on the arithmetical triangle. The next seven chapters trace the subsequent story, from Euler’s contributions to such wide-ranging topics as partitions, polyhedra, and latin squares to the 20th-century advances in combinatorial set theory, enumeration, and graph theory. The book concludes with some combinatorial reflections.Less
The history of mathematics is a well-studied and vibrant area of research, with books and scholarly articles published on various aspects of the subject. Yet, the history of combinatorics seems to have been largely overlooked. This book goes some way to redress this and serves two main purposes: it constitutes the first book-length survey of the history of combinatorics, and it assembles, for the first time in a single source, researches on the history of combinatorics that would otherwise be inaccessible to the general reader. Individual chapters have been contributed by sixteen experts. The book opens with an introduction to two thousand years of combinatorics. This is followed by seven chapters on early combinatorics, leading from Indian and Chinese writings on permutations to late-Renaissance publications on the arithmetical triangle. The next seven chapters trace the subsequent story, from Euler’s contributions to such wide-ranging topics as partitions, polyhedra, and latin squares to the 20th-century advances in combinatorial set theory, enumeration, and graph theory. The book concludes with some combinatorial reflections.
