Cover -- Contents -- Preface -- 1 "Sports and Pastimes, Done by Number": Mathematical Tricks, Mathematical Games -- The Well Spring of Sciences: Humfrey Baker, 1564 -- Mathematical Recreations: Henry van Etten, 1633 -- "How Prodigiously Numbers Do Increase": William Leybourne, 1667 -- Profitable and Delightful Problems: Jacques Ozanam, 1708 -- Lotteries and Mountebanks: L. Despiau, 1801 -- Dodging the Mastodon and the Plesiosaurus: Henry Ernest Dudeney, 1917 -- "Plenty of Interesting Things to Be Discovered": NRICH, 1998-2004 -- 2 "Much Necessary for All States of Men": From Arithmetic to Algebra -- Addition and Subtraction: Robert Recorde, 1543 -- Multiplication and Division: Thomas Masterson, 1592 -- Reducing Fractions: John Tapp, 1621 -- Decimal Fractions: Edward Hatton, 1695 -- Extracting Square Roots: William Banson, 1760 -- The Rule of Three: Wardhaugh Thompson, 1771 -- The Rule of Three, in Verse: Nathan Withy, 1792 -- "The First Analysts": Joseph Fenn, 1775 -- Quadratic Equations: The Popular Educator, 1855 -- Cubic Equations for the Practical Man: J. E. Thompson, 1931 -- 3 "A Goodly Struggle": Problems, Puzzles, and Challenges -- The Ladies' Diary: 1798 -- The Girl's Own Book: Lydia Marie Child, 1835 -- The Boy's Own Magazine: 1855 -- "The Analyst": 1874 -- Can You Solve It?: Arthur Hirschberg, 1926 -- Mathematical Challenges: 1989 -- 4 "Drawyng, Measuring and Proporcion": Geometry and Trigonometry -- Points and Lines: Robert Recorde, 1551 -- Squares and Triangles: Thomas Rudd, 1650 -- Pythagoras's Theorem: Edmund Scarburgh, 1705 -- Trigonometrical Definitions: Edward Wells, 1714 -- The Resolution of Triangles: Hugh Worthington, 1780 -- Introduction to Spherical Geometry: Horatio Nelson Robinson, 1854 -- Napier's Rules: Alan Clive Gardner, 1956 -- 5 Maps, Monsters, and Riddles: The Worlds of Mathematical Popularization.

The Athenian Mercury: 1691-1697 -- Newton for the Ladies: Francesco Algarotti, 1739 -- Maps and Mazes: W. W. Rouse Ball, 1892 -- "Einstein's Real Achievement": Oliver Lodge, 1921 -- Riddles in Mathematics: Eugene P. Northrop, 1945 -- Fermat's Last Theorem: Hans Rademacher and Otto Toeplitz, 1957 -- Where Does It End?: Dan Pedoe, 1958 -- Yamátárájabhánasalagám: Sherman K. Stein, 1963 -- Saddles and Soap Bubbles: Iakov Isaevich Khurgin, 1974 -- "The Monster" Unveiled: The Times, 1980 -- 6 "To Ease and Expedite the Work": Mathematical Instruments and How to Use Them -- "Cards for the Sea": Martín Cortés, 1561 -- Making a Horizontal Sundial: Thomas Fale, 1593 -- Speaking-Rods: Seth Partridge, 1648 -- Telescopes Refracting and Reflecting: The Juvenile Encyclopedia, 1800-1801 -- Scales Simple and Diagonal: J. F. Heather, 1888 -- Making a Star Clock: Roy Worvill, 1974 -- PC Astronomy: Peter Duffet-Smith, 1997 -- 7 "How Fine a Mind": Mathematicians Past -- The Labyrinth and Abyss of Infinity: Voltaire, 1733 -- "It Must Have Commenced with Mankind": Charles Hutton, 1796 -- Kepler's Astronomical Publications: Robert Small, 1804 -- Isaac Newton, a Good and Great Man: Anonymous, 1860 -- Pythagoras and His Theorem: Thomas L. Heath, 1908 -- Seki Kōwa: David Eugene Smith and Yoshio Mikami, 1914 -- "Her Absolute, Incomparable Uniqueness": B. L. van der Waerden, 1935 -- "One of Your Calculating Fits": George Bernard Shaw, 1939 -- Analysis Incarnate: Carl Boyer, 1968 -- Hardy and Littlewood Rummage: Robert Kanigel, 1991 -- 8 "By Plain and Practical Rules": Mathematics at Work -- High Marshal and Camp Master: Leonard Digges, 1579 -- The Practical Gauger: William Hunt, 1673 -- Geodæsia: John Love, 1688 -- Plain Sailing: Archibald Patoun, 1762 -- High-Pressure Engines: William Templeton, 1833 -- The Strength of Materials: Lucius D. Gould, 1853.

Plumbing and Hydraulics: William H. Dooley, 1920 -- Automobiles and Printing: Samuel Slade and Louis Margolis, 1941 -- 9 "The Speedier Expedition of Their Learning": Thoughts on Teaching and Learning Mathematics -- "To Have Their Children or Servants Instructed": Humfrey Baker, 1590 -- Euclid with Algebra: Isaac Barrow, 1660 -- The Idea of Velocity: Leonhard Euler, 1760 -- Mathematical Toys: "Mrs Lovechild," 1785 -- A Mother Explains Comets: Catherine Vale Whitwell, 1823 -- "Geometry without Axioms": Thomas Perronet Thompson, 1833 -- The Game of Logic: Lewis Carroll, 1887 -- Higher Mathematics for Women: Mrs. Henry Sidgwick, 1912 -- A New Aspect of Mathematical Method: George Pólya, 1945 -- New Math for Parents: Evelyn Sharp, 1966 -- "Merely a Formal Statement of the Way We Think": Robert E. Eicholz and Phares G. O'Daffer, 1964 -- Turtle Fun: Serafim Gascoigne, 1985 -- 10 "So Fundamentally Useful a Science": Reflections on Mathematics and Its Place in the World -- The Myrrour of the Worlde: Gossuin of Metz, 1481 -- "A Very Fruitfull Praeface": John Dee, 1570 -- "Geometry Is Improving Daily": Joseph Glanvill, 1664 -- The Fifth Element: Edmund Scarburgh, 1705 -- Of Mathematics in General: Richard Sault, 1710 -- Lineal Arithmetic: William Playfair, 1798 -- Astronomy in New South Wales: Charles Stargard Rumker, 1825 -- The Advantages of Mathematics: William Barnes, 1834 -- Sylvester Contra Huxley: J. J. Sylvester, 1870 -- What a Mathematical Proposition Is: Cassius Jackson Keyser, 1929 -- The Character of Physical Law: Richard P. Feynman, 1965 -- Our Invisible Culture: Allen L. Hammond, 1978 -- 11 The Mathematicians Who Never Were: Fiction and Humor -- Spider-Men and Lice-Men: Margaret Cavendish, 1666 -- In the Court of Lilliput: "Captain Gulliver," 1727 -- Automathes: John Kirkby, 1745 -- The Loves of the Triangles: John Frere, 1798.

Master Senex the Astronomer: William Combe, 1815 -- An Ode to the Mathematics: Alfred Domett, 1833 -- "Some Veritable Urania": Augusta Jane Evans, 1864 -- Fun: 1863, 1870 -- A Sight of Thine Interior: Edwin A. Abbott, 1884 -- Scenes in the Life of Pythagoras: Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle, 1953 -- Bao Suyo: Kim Stanley Robinson, 1996 -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- V -- W -- Y.