Numbers: 123

While we each view our specialty as having roots in the past, and sometimes having connec­ tions to other specialties in the present, we seldom see the panorama of mathematical development over thousands of years. This is a book about numbers - all kinds of numbers, from integers to p-adics, from rationals to octonions, from reals to infinitesimals. Who first used the standard notation for A? Why was Hamilton obsessed with quaternions? What was the prospect for "quaternionic analysis" in the 19th century? This is the story about one of the major threads of mathematics over thousands of years. It is a story that will give the reader both a glimpse of the mystery surrounding imaginary numbers in the 17th century and also a view of some major developments in the 20th.