Stamping through Mathematics [Hardcover]

The astonishing variety and beauty of mathematical elements in stamp design is brought to life in this collection of more than 350 stamps, illustrated with mathematical figures, people, and content, each reproduced in enlarged format, in full color. It's a perfect gift book for anyone interested in stamps, or in the surprising use of mathematics in the real world. The author is widely known in the math community for his regular column on stamps in the magazine The Mathematical Intelligencer.

If you are interested in the beauty of mathematics, you must go out and buy Robin Wilson's absolutely stunning book of mathematical stamps, a book which traces the history of mathematics through images on the postage of countries around the globe.

- Victor Katz, MAA Online

Postage stamps are an attractive vehicle for presenting mathematics and its development. For many years the author has presented illustrated lectures entitled Stamping through Mathematics to school and college groups and to mathematical clubs and societies, and has written a regular Stamps Corner for The Mathematical Intelligencer. The book contains almost four-hundred postage stamps relating to mathematics, ranging from the earliest forms of counting to the modern computer age. The stamps appear enlarged and in full color with full historical commentary, and are listed at the end of the book.

Introduction; Preface; 1. Early mathematics; 2. Egypt; 3. Greek geometry; 4. Plato's Academy; 5. Euclid and Archimedes; 6. Greek astromony; 7. Ancient board games; 8. China; 9. Central America; 10. India; 11. Islamic mathematics: Al-Khwarizmi to Alhazen; 12. Islamic astronomy; 13. Islamic mathematics: Avicenna to al-Tusi; 14. Late Islamic mathematics; 15. Europe: the Middle Ages; 16. The growth of learning; 17. Art and mathematics; 18. Chess and Go; 19. The age of exploration; 20. Map making; 21. MAthematil#m