My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher William Morrow for an advance copy of this lok at the history of mathematics and many of the key people involved who through no fault of their own have been forgotten unfairly, marginalised, or deliberately forgotten for their contributions, problems, solutions, to the world of numbers.

Humans have an infinite capacity to make everything about race and gender. One can't watch the most innocuous of media, movies, television, comics, or deal in science without someone complaining about the fact that other people, usually not their own, are suddenly getting credit. Planes are falling out of skies, and comic book movies are suddenly bad, because of the entry of non-whites, women, or god forbid non-traditional gender types. Which is so strange to me as mathematics seems like a field that well the proof is in the problem, and the answer. Though it is amazing who math has been corrupted in so many ways to prove things, usually the inefficiency of different races, and of course women. Math really has many creators, something started thousands of years ago and accepted might have become lost, or forgotten, or banned for practicing what religious leaders seeking control would call deviltry, or being Arabic, as some laws once stated. There rediscovery made many a European famous., omitting the work that said Europeans might have built on. Hence the reason, and the meaning of this book. The Secret Lives of Numbers: A Hidden History of Math’s Unsung Trailblazers by Kate Kitagawa; Timothy Revell is a look at the history of math, including those who have unfairly been forgotten, traveling most of the Earth in showing the origins or math, the burgeoning understanding and what the future of mathematics might hold.

The book begins with some of the ways early man began to count things, bones, notches on bones, strings and knots and more. Some of these were simple, some of them were needlessly complicated. Much of the ideas for mathematics was based on figuring out growing seasons, and early astronomy, and the book details many of the different observation places people created to understand what was going on in the night sky. The book looks at time, and how working out minutes, seconds and hours developed number systems. As the book goes we meet early mathematicians that history might pass over like Hypatia, who was a respected female mathematician, whose violent death was pointless, and a reflection of the times. Readers learn about the great empires of India, where many ideas sprung, and carried by Arabic traders to other lands, where they were adapted. Up until the present day, and beyond.

When I was in school, I really wasn't good in math, as I had no real interest in it, nor a good understanding. Once I was in college, and suddenly had a budget, and had to but my own groceries, that I became interested in math, figuring out sales prices, with coupons, and percentages in my head like a young Karen Uhlenbeck, the first woman to win the Abel prize, and featured in the book. I began to read books on math, fascinated by the history of Zero, also covered in the book, and how numbers could tell us so much about the world. This is the fist book that I can say I understood everything, well some I had to read a few pages over. The authors are very good at conveying information, and even better conveying the history that was changed by certain forms of math. Time, the invention of zero, even algorithms, all have effects on us today, and by reading and even better understanding where and to whom we can thank for their work, is a really great thing.

History fans and math fans will really enjoy this. I was surprised how much I learned, and how many facts I could toss at people while I read this. I really enjoyed the style of the writing, and hope to read more books by these two authors.

I read "The Housekeeper and the Professor" by Yoko Ogawa several years ago, and as a longtime lover of all things math, I was fascinated by the connections and patterns in the world of math and numbers. This book in like the history and science behind the story in the "The Housekeeper and the Professor" and I loved every single word. I already want to read it again so I can soak up even more.

I've got mixed feelings on this one. The blurb was fairly dramatic, almost conspiratorial, claiming that mathematical history was skewed towards white male contributions. I ignored the rhetoric because I did want to read about others' contributions, and that's mostly what I got. The first half of the book follows early mathematical history fairly well, filling in some gaps on early activities that aren't always covered in standard history books. The last half, however, cherry-picked a few women and minorities to focus on, and that's where the historical thread fell apart for me. It's hard as a reader to construct a history in your head when you only have a few examples that popped up here and there. How do they fit into the bigger picture?

The authors were more balanced than the blurb writer about their approach, showing some restraint as they introduced lesser-known figures. They really had to stretch in some cases, as one-off instances of someone working a problem that didn't yield results and wasn't followed up is hard to classify as history. It's interesting, of course, but it's hard to make too much of it in the big scheme of things.

I just reread that, and it sounds more negative than I intended. The big is worth a quick read, especially the first half, but there are other histories available that should cover the territory in more depth. It's an OK read and I finished it, so no regrets there. This can be one of the "unknown history" books you can read, but it shouldn't be the only one.

Do you know who Madhava of Sangamagrama, founder of a school in Kerala, India in the 14th century, is? I didn’t think so. He may be the first person to have developed a theory of calculus; yes, before Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz in the 17th century. Why is Madhava not the recognized originator of the theory? Perhaps, it came too early; perhaps, it was not complete or perfect. Throughout history, most likely in all the sciences, there are forgotten men and women. In the field of mathematics, the focus of this book, many of those men and women were simply repressed, discouraged, and/or forbidden in the society in which they lived. This book is an attempt at bringing to light, a few of the many mathematicians who changed the world, and at the same time inspire a new generation of people to break down the limitations a society places on them due to race, gender, cultural identity, language, and continue to reach for what they know would make the world a better place.

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

This book is about the historical people, events, civilizations, and cultures giving rise to mathematical systems, mathematical discoveries, uses for mathematics. There are some examples of numbers or numerical methods of solving problems, but that’s not the book’s focus.

A discussion of the pre-historic use of numbers and ways of marking them is discussed, and the various numerical systems used by ancient civilizations, through the common era, even into the recent past and present, and how those differ. Much of the difference has to do with culture, worldview, and mythology or religion. In several instances, the leaders of a predominant religion made decrees against mathematics since it didn’t fit with the belief of those leaders.

Although mathematics is universal, it’s astounding the amount of racism, sexism, classism, and economic-status has held promising mathematicians back. There are women, blacks, former-slave, and poor people who’ve overcome these obstacles and became great mathematicians. There are still disparities in the number of women who get PhDs in statistics or mathematics vs their male counterparts, although in most fields of study it’s close to even.

Before electronic computers, a "computer" was a person who figured numbers by hand or with an adding machine. This took a tremendous number of people who were almost all women. They are the people who made everything from missiles to rockets work, and even chemistry and biology.

The Secret Lives of Numbers: A Hidden History of Mathematics gives a glimpse into the global history of mathematics, but it focuses on lesser-known (secret) stories and characters. It is very impressive, how the authors managed to cover such a long period, so many events in about 300 pages. I wish the book was two times or even three times as long, to get more details.

I especially appreciated putting the history of mathematics in the context of global history and politics. The authors are very clear about which events are well-documented, which things are believed to be true, and what is (most probably) just a myth.

The concepts are very well explained for non-experts.