B chapter.indd - Charles Babbage Institute - University of Minnesota

102
Colophon and printer’s mark, B 80
Erwin Tomash Library
Baldi, Bernardino Ball, Walter William Rouse
occasional ink notations in the wide margin and another
has added pencil notations. The pencil notations appear
to be of two types, one working the examples to check
the arithmetic and another attempting to correct misprints
or clarify hard-to-read text. The pencil annotations leave
the impression of someone preparing another edition.
Illustrations available:
Title page
Printer’s mark
Baldi, Bernardino, translator
See Hero of Alexandria; De gli automati, overo
machine se moventi, libri due, tradotti dal Greco
da Bernardino Baldi Abbate di Guastalla, 1589
B 81
Ball, Walter William Rouse (1850–1925) [H. M. S.
Coxeter (1907–2003), editor]
Mathematical recreations and essays.
Year: 1947
Place: New York
Publisher: Macmillan
Edition: late
Language: English
Figures: 2 photolith plates
Binding: original cloth boards; with dust jacket
Pagination: pp. xvi, 418
Size: 203x136 mm
W. W. R. Ball was a mathematician at Trinity College,
Cambridge. He is well known as a writer on the history
B 81
of mathematics and on ancillary subjects such as
mathematical recreations, e.g., string figures.
This is one of the more famous books on recreational
mathematics. It was produced by a master in the field
and has remained continuously in print from its first
publication in 1892. It spans the field from simple
arithmetical series to cryptography and cryptanalysis.
Of particular interest is the section on calculating
prodigies. The editor of this edition, H. M. S. Coxeter, a
mathematician at the University of Toronto, was known
for his interest in recreational mathematics as well as
more traditional mathematical fields.
Illustrations available:
Title page
B 82
Ball, Walter William Rouse (1850–1925)
A primer of the history of mathematics.
Year: 1914
Place: London
Publisher: Macmillan
Edition: 4th
Language: English
Binding: original cloth boards
Pagination: pp. iv, 164
Collation: π 2 A–K 8 γ 2
Size: 174x114 mm
Reference: Cre CL, p. 102
This highly condensed version of Ball’s History of
mathematics makes no pretense to be anything except a
short, popular description of the history of mathematics