Bestselling author and physicist Stephen Hawking explores the masterpieces of mathematics, 25 landmarks spanning 2,500 years and representing the work of 15 mathematicians, including Augustin Cauchy, Bernard Riemann, and Alan Turing. This extensive anthology allows readers to peer into the mind of genius by providing them with excerpts from the original mathematical proofs and results. It also helps them understand the progression of mathematical thought, and the very foundations of our present-day technologies. Each chapter begins with a biography of the featured mathematician, clearly explaining the significance of the result, followed by the full proof of the work, reproduced from the original publication. Physicist Stephen Hawking has been described as the most intelligent man in the world today by the Chicago Sun-Times, and as the scientific heir, to Einstein, Newton...and Galileo by People magazine. Hawking's A Brief History of Time sold more than 10 million copies in 40 different languages. His previous title for Running Press, On the Shoulders of Giants, has sold more than 50,000 copies.

"Best-selling author and world-renowned physicist Hawking has created a showcase of literature excerpts describing mathematicians and ideas that have shaped the history of science. Broader in scope than his earlier works and similar in approach to his more recent work, On the Shoulders of Giants, this features biographies of 17 great figures in the world of mathematics and 31 excerpts of their landmark literature." Library Journal

Bestselling author and physicist Hawking explores the "masterpieces" of mathematics, 25 landmarks spanning 2,500 years and representing the work of 15 mathematicians, including Augustin Cauchy, Bernard Riemann, and Alan Turing.