Significant Figures

The Lives and Work of Great Mathematicians

By: Ian Stewart

Narrated by: Roger Clark

In Significant Figures, acclaimed mathematician Ian Stewart introduces the visionaries of mathematics throughout history. Delving into the lives of 25 great mathematicians, Stewart examines the roles they played in creating, inventing, and discovering the mathematics we use today. Through these short biographies, we get acquainted with the history of mathematics from Archimedes to Benoit Mandelbrot, and learn about those too often left out of the cannon, such as Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi (c. 780-850), the creator of algebra, and Augusta Ada King (1815-1852), Countess of Lovelace, the world's first computer programmer.

Tracing the evolution of mathematics over the course of two millennia, Significant Figures will educate and delight aspiring mathematicians and experts alike.

©2017 Joat Enterprises (P)2017 Tantor

Critic reviews

"By showing how even mathematical geniuses face all-too-human challenges, Stewart offers a riveting chronicle of one of humankind's loftiest endeavors." (Paul Halpern, author of The Quantum Labyrinth)

Research pronunciations before you perform!

I can't imagine putting my name and voice to an internationally-distributed production without doing some basic research on how to pronounce things. "Euler" is pronounced "Oiler" not "Yooler".

Reading math equations

Listening to the reading of math equations is bad. But the biographical information and the accomplishments of the 25 mathematicians was l,

narration grating, often difficult to understand

Although essentially another defense of the outdated undergraduate math curriculum, it has some interesting insights and is worth the read. But the narration is painfully difficult to listen to. Inconsistent and incorrect pronunciation - e.g., sometimes "Goss" and sometimes "Gas" and ocassionally "Gauss", but always uhler and Kuht Goodle. Never says parentheses. Always says bracket. Never says "of". Instead "eff open bracket ex close bracket". Ruins a serviceable collection of biographies

excellent, but tough listen

probably the most rewarding history book that I've ever listened to. I need to give the guy who read the audio book a lot of credit, but I can't remember his name. He did a really good job though. Not all of that stuff is easy to talk about and sound excited. I'm not even sure that it's appropriate to sound excited. I liked it anyway. I learned a lot about all of these people some of them I didn't even really know existed and others I knew of but I gained a lot of insight on who they were from this book.

Painful To Listen To

While the content is good, the fake accent and mispronunciations are just grating on the nerves. The narrator absolutely butchers the names of even the most commonly known mathematicians, and as another reviewer mentioned, he's from New Jersey and is faking his European accent. It's really hard to get to the content of the book because it's so painful to listen to.