9/5/2023 0 Comments Ad infinitum booksIsaac Gilman ’03, Library Scholarly Communcation Programs: Legal and Ethical Considerations (Chandos Publishing). “If the muscles in the brain that control reason and art need to be developed,” writes Lo Bello, “then the appropriate stimulation is mathematics.” - Dan Laskin Recent Books by Kenyon Authors But his complaints are rooted in intellectual commitment. The author doesn’t hesitate to skewer, often humorously. If you thought mathematicians were always dispassionate, check out Lo Bello’s strong opinions on terms like grade point average, innovation, robust and metadata. Lo Bello engagingly digs his way from abacus to zero, exploring technical terms ( clepsydra, a Greek water-clock), words with both mathematical and ordinary associations ( ruin), history ( calendar mathematics), intellectual figures (see Cartesian) and knowledge itself ( philosophy). ![]() But once you start to browse, it’s hard to stop. This “discursive etymological dictionary” bears a dry title: Origins of Mathematical Words: A Comprehensive Dictionary of Latin, Greek, and Arabic Roots (Johns Hopkins University Press). Or that Archimedes, at least in legend, died (at the hands of a Roman soldier) with the words Noli tangere circulos meos! (“Get off my circles!”).Īnyone interested in words and language-indeed, in culture-will find something fascinating on every page of the new book by Anthony Lo Bello ’69, a professor of mathematics at Allegheny College. Or that there are theorems for trying to calculate the age of a language, a field called glottochronology. ![]() Or that the word cardinal (used both religiously and mathematically) comes from the Latin term for the hinge of a door. ![]() You may know that the word algebra comes from Arabic, but you probably didn’t know that it has something to do with resetting broken bones.
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