Ivor Grattan-guinness Quotes
June 23, 1941
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Mathematics is one of the most basic -- and most ancient -- types of knowledge. Yet the details of its historical development remain obscure to all but a few specialists.
Text back cover 
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More Ivor Grattan-guinness Quotes
Mathematics occupies a peculiar position in cultural life today. 'Everybody knows' that it is one of the most basic, and also ancient, types of knowledge; yet it is not part of normal cultural discourse, and few people know much about its historical development, or even that it has a history.
Ivor Grattan-guinness— Companion Encyclopedia of the History and Philosophy of the Mathematical Sciences, Volume 1, page 3, 2003
Non-Newtonian calculi... have considerable potential as alternative approaches to traditional problems.
Ivor Grattan-guinness— "Non-Newtonian Calculus," Middlesex Math Notes (Middlesex University, England), 1977
It [ non-Euclidean geometry ] would be ranked among the most famous achievements of the entire [nineteenth] century, but up to 1860 the interest was rather slight.
Ivor Grattan-guinness— p. 400 (The Rainbow of Mathematics: A History of the Mathematical Sciences (2000))
In addition, the teaching of theories from axioms, or some close imitation of them such as the basic laws of an algebra, is usually an educational disaster.
Ivor Grattan-guinness— p. 739 (The Rainbow of Mathematics: A History of the Mathematical Sciences (2000))
Grattan-Guinness has achieved a synthesis here of remarkable historical and mathematical scope and sensitivity. His book is a 'must read' for historians of science and mathematics, as well as mathematicians.
Ivor Grattan-guinness— From Karen Hunger Parshall's review of The Rainbow of Mathematics (2000)
Grattan-Guiness's uniformly interesting and valuable account of the interwoven development of logic and related fields of mathematics . . . between 1870 and 1940 presents a significantly revised analysis of the history of the period. . . . [His] book is important because it supplies what has been lacking: a full account of the period from a primary mathematical perspective.
Ivor Grattan-guinness— From James W. Van Evra's review in Isis of The Search for Mathematical Roots 1870-1940
