Technical literature

The great mathematicians, by H. W. Turnbull, gives brief biographies of great mathematicians from the 18th century B.C. to the present. Emphasis is on the background of the times, the lives of the men, and the uses of the discoveries, rather than on the symbolism of mathematics itself. The purpose of the book as expressed in the introduction is to show “how a mathematician thinks, how his imagination, as well as his reason, leads him to new aspects of the truth.” Priced at $3.50, the book is available from New York University Press, Washington Square, New York 3, N. Y.