Like masterpieces of art, music, and literature, great mathematical theorems are creative milestones, works of genius destined to last forever. Now William Dunham gives them the attention they deserve.

Dunham places each theorem within its historical context and explores the very human and often turbulent life of the creator -- from Archimedes, the absentminded theoretician whose absorption in his work often precluded eating or bathing, to Gerolamo Cardano, the sixteenth-century mathematician whose accomplishments flourished despite a bizarre array of misadventures, to the paranoid...

"Dunham writes for nonspecialists, and they will enjoy his piquant anecdotes and amusing asides -- Booklist

"Artfully, Dunham conducts a tour of the mathematical universe. . . he believes these ideas to be accessible to the audience he wants to reach, and he writes so that they are." -- Nature

"If you want to encourage anyone's interest in math, get them The Mathematical Universe."
* New Scientist