The capital three-volume work History of Mathematics by Professor Miodrag Perović has just been published by the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts (CANU).
Miodrag Perović, one of the founders of PMF, a long-time professor at the University of Montenegro, also a civil activist, founder of "Monitor", one of the founders of "Vijesti", an intellectual who decisively shaped the Montenegrin anti-war and emancipation movement of the nineties, convincingly with this book, he returns to his basic vocation - science.
Perović's monumental work received a unique compliment from Belgrade professor Milan Božić from the Faculty of Mathematics, one of the reviewers:
"This reviewer is also the author of a similar - but considerably smaller book - with the same purpose. The mere fact that - in the summer months - the reviewer read it 'from beginning to end' is more than enough recommendation. Personally, I think that from the Skagerat line, "Kategat - Trieste to the East, you can hardly find a better written book on this topic. In this context, not only Montenegro, but also the entire cultural and linguistic space that it shares, should be satisfied that someone was not in need and wrote such a good work".
CANU academic Milojica Jaćimović writes in her review:
"This very extensive manuscript actually represents the author's answer to the question of how the history of mathematics should be presented, how it should be taught to students, how it should be studied and for what purpose. The manuscript is organized into three volumes, which, in the opinion of the author, cover three historical epochs in the development of mathematics. The first volume consists of three chapters, and it covers the period until the end of the Alexandrian era. In the first chapter, an analysis was made of the very beginnings of mathematics, then of the period when philosophy, natural sciences and mathematics were one. The author entitled the corresponding chapter "Protomathematics" and in it proto-mathematics in Egypt and Mesopotamia are described, then in the second chapter entitled "The birth of mathematics in ancient Greece", the fantastic rise of mathematics in ancient Greece is described, beginning with the birth of science, philosophy and mathematics, the formation of philosophical and mathematical schools, (Thales, Pythagoras , Plato, Eudoxus, Aristotle), then the separation of mathematics and philosophy. The author analyzes the contributions of these schools. The third chapter describes the Alexandrian era in the development of mathematics, in which we have an incredible rise of mathematics. This is the period in which Euclid's "Elements" were written, then Archimedes' beginnings of infinitesimal calculus, his results on the sphere and cylinder, his axiomatic foundation of mechanics, and Apollonius' works on conics. The author not only points to the mathematical results of the ancient Greek and Alexandrian era, but he carefully analyzes the definitions, formulas, proofs of the corresponding theorems, explains how the ideas created in that period later continue, and how we recognize them even in the results of modern mathematics. (...) At the end of this volume, the author describes the end and extinction of the mathematics of the Greek epoch, which occurred in the Western Roman Empire, and as a border year, he points out 529, when the Academy of Athens and the Museum of Alexandria, which were for a long time symbols of the science of ancient Greece, were closed. The second volume consists of 6 chapters and covers the Middle Ages in China, India, the Caliphate and Europe and which is characterized first by an almost complete dying out and then by a gradual renewal of interest in knowledge from ancient Greece, which produced a revolution in science as a whole, and infinitesimal calculus in particular. In volume III of the book manuscript, the evolution of mathematical ideas from the 17th century to modern results and forms is shown. This volume consists of four chapters: chapter X of the book describes the evolution of Mathematical Analysis, chapter XI describes the evolution of ideas in geometry, chapter XII describes the development of algebra, while the last chapter XIII is dedicated to issues of the foundation of mathematics. At the beginning of chapter X, the work of Leonard Euler, which belongs to mathematical analysis, is presented. The author cites and comments on Euler's works, points out interesting details", emphasizes Academician Jaćimović.
In the preface to his "History of Mathematics", Professor Perović quotes Leibniz:
"The benefit of it is not that History gives everyone his merits..., but also that it advances the art of discovery". In Perović's book, 4000 years of this very art of discovery, as well as its effect on the growth of civilization, are shown.
Bonus video:
