Amazon Prime Free Trial
FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button and confirm your Prime free trial.
Amazon Prime members enjoy:- Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
- Unlimited FREE Prime delivery
- Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
- A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
- Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
Important: Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.
$14.95$14.95
Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com
$9.01$9.01
Ships from: Amazon Sold by: 777Khost
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
The Exact Sciences in Antiquity 2nd ed. Edition
Purchase options and add-ons
Based on a series of lectures delivered at Cornell University in the fall of 1949, and since revised, this is the standard non-technical coverage of Egyptian and Babylonian mathematics and astronomy, and their transmission to the Hellenistic world. Entirely modern in its data and conclusions, it reveals the surprising sophistication of certain areas of early science, particularly Babylonian mathematics.
After a discussion of the number systems used in the ancient Near East (contrasting the Egyptian method of additive computations with unit fractions and Babylonian place values), Dr. Neugebauer covers Babylonian tables for numerical computation, approximations of the square root of 2 (with implications that the Pythagorean Theorem was known more than a thousand years before Pythagoras), Pythagorean numbers, quadratic equations with two unknowns, special cases of logarithms and various other algebraic and geometric cases. Babylonian strength in algebraic and numerical work reveals a level of mathematical development in many aspects comparable to the mathematics of the early Renaissance in Europe. This is in contrast to the relatively primitive Egyptian mathematics. In the realm of astronomy, too, Dr. Neugebauer describes an unexpected sophistication, which is interpreted less as the result of millennia of observations (as used to be the interpretation) than as a competent mathematical apparatus. The transmission of this early science and its further development in Hellenistic times is also described. An Appendix discusses certain aspects of Greek astronomy and the indebtedness of the Copernican system to Ptolemaic and Islamic methods.
Dr. Neugebauer has long enjoyed an international reputation as one of the foremost workers in the area of premodern science. Many of his discoveries have revolutionized earlier understandings. In this volume he presents a non-technical survey, with much material unique on this level, which can be read with great profit by all interested in the history of science or history of culture.
- ISBN-100486223329
- ISBN-13978-0486223322
- Edition2nd ed.
- PublisherDover Publications
- Publication dateJune 1, 1969
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions5.42 x 0.55 x 8.46 inches
- Print length288 pages
Frequently bought together
Customers who bought this item also bought
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Otto Neugebauer: Exacting History
Neugebauer's The Exact Sciences in Antiquity became an instant unique classic of scientific literature when first published in 1951 in the United States and in Copenhagen where he had lived and worked for some years after having been forced out of Germany because of his opposition to National Socialism. At the start of World War II, Otto Neugebauer (1899–1990) left Europe for Brown University where he founded the History of Mathematics Department. Years later a colleague at Brown recalled Neugebauer's eloquent summary of the dark years in Germany: "If you never heard the sound of Nazi boots below you in the street, you cannot understand the history of the period."
In the 1980s he moved to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He wrote several books and many articles in addition to The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. His monumental three-volume History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy (1975) is the definitive work on the subject. Dover reprinted The Exact Sciences in Antiquity in 1969.
Critical Acclaim for Otto Neugebauer:
"Otto Neugebauer was the most original and productive scholar of the history of the exact sciences, perhaps of the history of science, of our age. He began as a mathematician, turned first to Egyptian and Babylonian mathematics, and then took up the history of mathematical astronomy, to which he afterward devoted the greatest part of his attention. In a career of sixty-five years, he to a great extent created our understanding of mathematical astronomy from Babylon and Egypt, through Greco-Roman antiquity, to India, Islam, and Europe of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Through his colleagues, students, and many readers, his influence on the study of the history of the exact sciences remains profound, even definitive." ― N. M. Swerdlow
Product details
- Publisher : Dover Publications; 2nd ed. edition (June 1, 1969)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 288 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0486223329
- ISBN-13 : 978-0486223322
- Item Weight : 10.4 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.42 x 0.55 x 8.46 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,291,952 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #829 in Mathematics History
- #3,589 in Mathematics (Books)
- #4,712 in History & Philosophy of Science (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read book recommendations and more.
Customer reviews
- 5 star4 star3 star2 star1 star5 star81%11%9%0%0%81%
- 5 star4 star3 star2 star1 star4 star81%11%9%0%0%11%
- 5 star4 star3 star2 star1 star3 star81%11%9%0%0%9%
- 5 star4 star3 star2 star1 star2 star81%11%9%0%0%0%
- 5 star4 star3 star2 star1 star1 star81%11%9%0%0%0%
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book provides good explanations and a great overview of mathematics in ancient Babylonian and Greek cultures. They appreciate the well-researched and well-documented sources. The history presented by the author is intriguing and described as excellent. Readers consider the book worthwhile and interesting.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the book provides good explanations and a good overview of mathematics. They appreciate the well-researched, well-documented sources and the historical context of science. The book also offers an introduction to scientific calculations and mathematics in ancient Babylonian and Greek.
"...Still, the explanations are there, and Neugebauer in the main of the text gives good information about the history of science, his opinions, and I..." Read more
"...The examples are well explained and illustrative of the mindset of each culture at the time...." Read more
"...The sources are direct, well researched, well documented, and extremely reliable...." Read more
"An excellent book about the history and the extent of advancement of mathematics, astronomy, and physics in Antiquity." Read more
Customers find the book's history engaging. They describe it as an excellent introduction to ancient cultures and a classic textbook.
"Other reviews are correct when they describe this book as the classic textbook for how ancient cultures approached mathematics and scientific..." Read more
"...that I don't quite understand, but the history presented by the author is intriguing nonetheless...." Read more
"An excellent book about the history and the extent of advancement of mathematics, astronomy, and physics in Antiquity." Read more
"Old book, of course is Neugebauer, but very good introduction to mathematics in the antique babylonian and greek civilization." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's value for money. They find it worthwhile, interesting, and satisfied with the content.
"...Overall, I think it is definitely worth reading just to get a sense of the achievements of ancient cultures, and to know what ancient math and..." Read more
"...of music, time, and space were one it is most rewarding and worthwhile." Read more
"This book is incredible!..." Read more
"Satisfied..." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 18, 2023Goes through the gamut of mathematical developments throughout antiquity: Egyptian, Sumerian, Babylonian, Greek and Roman. As I said without peer. If you are interested in the ancient history of mathematics, this is the book.
- Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2017Neugebauer explains how ancient math and astronomy worked. This is done very well, although I'd argue that he doesn't always make it very clear what he's talking about if you don't already know (his treatment of the Almagest and Ptolemy's map projections take a lot of definitions for granted). In order to understand the explanations of many of the steps, you will have to reread them many times and stare at the figures (just like you have to for any math/physics books with derivations that aren't trivial). Still, the explanations are there, and Neugebauer in the main of the text gives good information about the history of science, his opinions, and I thought his Babylonian math explanations were much clearer than the geometric ones.
Overall, I think it is definitely worth reading just to get a sense of the achievements of ancient cultures, and to know what ancient math and astronomy consisted of.
- Reviewed in the United States on January 19, 2018Other reviews are correct when they describe this book as the classic textbook for how ancient cultures approached mathematics and scientific calculations. The examples are well explained and illustrative of the mindset of each culture at the time. It's fascinating seeing "normal" calculations like trigononetry written in cuneiform or ancient Egyptian. As a data analyst I approached this book from the perspective of how numbers are stored and how the arrangement / structure affects the mathematical thought / steps necessary to solve a problem using them. The only thing to be aware of is that the prose is very dry and a little outdated, but if you're curious enough to buy a book about ancient math, you are probably accustomed to it.
- Reviewed in the United States on June 20, 2013Rather than the endless tomes containing nothing but what individuals think the ancients did this one actually shows pictures of some of the source tablets and mathematical tables the concepts in the book were translated from. The sources are direct, well researched, well documented, and extremely reliable. I first bought this book a couple of decades ago but discovering it missing from my library after a move I still treasured it enough to purchase it again. For someone in search of a time when the mathematics of music, time, and space were one it is most rewarding and worthwhile.
- Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2020Very satisfied with this purchase.
- Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2020This was a second edition hardback, a Barnes and Noble copy. I was disappointed that it did not include photos of the source document tablets which the original book apparently had.
- Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2014This book is incredible! It is really dense with information that I don't quite understand, but the history presented by the author is intriguing nonetheless. I honestly don't understand anything besides base 10 maths :) Definitely buy this book...and then read it.
- Reviewed in the United States on April 1, 2017An excellent book about the history and the extent of advancement of mathematics, astronomy, and physics in Antiquity.
Top reviews from other countries
-
Cliente AmazonReviewed in Italy on June 22, 2022
5.0 out of 5 stars Stupendo
Per chi capisce bene l'inglese ottima lettura, altrimenti meglio prendere l'edizione in italiano. L'autore è uno dei maggiori studiosi sull'argomento.
-
paloma ortizReviewed in Spain on March 17, 2014
5.0 out of 5 stars Un clásico
Aunque publicado hace ya muchos años, mantiene su interés por estar basado en datos obtenidos personalmente por el autor en los textos que sirven de fuente al estudio.