Poor Robin's prophecies : a curious Almanac, and the everyday mathematics of Georgian Britain /
Author, astrologer, journalist, satirist, and 'well-willer to the mathematics', Poor Robin of Saffron Walden was a fantastic, yet invented, figure of British popular culture from the Restoration to the end of the Georgian period. Poor Robin's Almanac first appeared in 1662, developing...
Clasificación: | Libro Electrónico |
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Autor principal: | |
Formato: | Electrónico eBook |
Idioma: | Inglés |
Publicado: |
Oxford :
Oxford University Press,
2012.
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Edición: | 1st ed. |
Temas: | |
Acceso en línea: | Texto completo |
Sumario: | Author, astrologer, journalist, satirist, and 'well-willer to the mathematics', Poor Robin of Saffron Walden was a fantastic, yet invented, figure of British popular culture from the Restoration to the end of the Georgian period. Poor Robin's Almanac first appeared in 1662, developing an enthusiastic following and long outliving its original creator to last until 1828. Benjamin Wardhaugh tells the great story of Georgian popular mathematics - through Poor Robin's remarkable life, from his humble beginnings as an almanac-writer through to best-selling stardom, controversy, and decline. Using the character, wit, and columns of Poor Robin, Wardhaugh explores the mathematics of ordinary people, from learning sums to using mathematics in weighing and measuring, in business, agriculture, map-making, and navigation. This is a history of mathematics that is rarely thought about -- creative, popular, and led by practical and social needs. It is centered on the ordinary people that used it. Their names remain little-known; their solutions have vanished along with the situations that required them; but their energy and ideas - as captured by Poor Robin - create a wonderfully rich picture of what mathematics can be, and has been. |
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Notas: | Title from PDF title page (viewed Oct. 1, 2012). |
Descripción Física: | 1 online resource |
Bibliografía: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
ISBN: | 9780191644566 0191644560 0199605424 9780199605422 9781283609678 1283609673 0191644579 9780191644573 9786613922120 6613922129 |