GOD CREATED

THE INTEGERS
T H E MATHEMATICAL BREAKTHROUGHS THAT CHANGED HISTORY

EDITED, WITH COMMENTARY, BY

STEPHEN
HAWKING

rr
RUNNING PRESS
PHILADELPHIA LONDON

CONTENTS
Introduction

xiii

EUCLID
(C.-325BC-265BC)

His Life and Work

Selections from Euclid's Elements
Book I: Basic GeometryDefinitions, Postulates, Common
Notions; and Proposition 47, (leading up to the Pythagorean
Theorem)
Book V: The Eudoxian Theory of ProportionDefinitions &
Propositions
Book VII: Elementary Number TheoryDefinitions &
Propositions
Book IX: Proposition 20: The Infinitude of Prime Numbers
Book IX: Proposition 36: Even Perfect Numbers
Book X: Commensurable and Incommensurable Magnitudes

01

07
25
63
101
102
104

ARCHIMEDES
(287BC-212BC)

His Life and Work

Selections from The Works ofArchimedes
On the Sphere and Cylinder, Books I and II
Measurement of a Circle
The Sand Reckoner
The Methods

119

' .

126/168
194
200
209

DlOPHANTUS
(C. 200-284)

His Life and Work

Selections from Diophantus of Alexandria, A Study in the History
of Greek Algebra
Book II Problems 8-35

Book III Problems 5-21

''
Book V Problems 1-29
IX

241

,246
255
265

CONTENTS

REN DESCARTES
(1596-1650)

His Life and Work

The Geometry of Rene Descartes

285
292

ISAAC NEWTON
(1642-1727)

His Life and Work

Selections from Principia
On First and Last Ratios of Quantities

365
374

LEONHARD EULER
(1707-1783)

His Life and Work

383

On the sums of series of reciprocals (De summis serierum

reciprocarum)

393

The Seven Bridges of Konigsberg

400

Proof that Every Integer is A Sum of Four Squares

407

PIERRE SIMON LAPLACE

(1749-1827)

His Life and Work

A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities

411
418

JEAN BAPTISTE JOSEPH FOURIER

(1768-1830)

His Life and Work

Selection from The Analytical Theory of Heat
Chapter III: Propagation of Heat in an Infinite Rectangular
Solid (The Fourier series)

519

528

CARL FRIEDRICH GAUSS

(1777-1855)

His Life and Work

591
Selections from Disquisitiones Arithmeticae (Arithmetic Disquisitions)
Section III Residues of Powers
,
'
599
Section IV Congruences of the Second Degree
625
X

CONTENTS

AUGUSTIN-LOUIS CAUCHY
"(1789-1857)

His Life and Work

Selections from Oeuvres completes dAugustin

663

Cauchy

Resume des lecons donnees a l'E\cole Royale Polytechnique sur le calcul

infinitesimal (1823), series 2, vol. 4

Lessons 3-4 on differential calculus
Lessons 21-24 on the integral

671
679

NIKOLAI IVANOVICH LOBACHEVSKY

(1792-1856)

His Life and Work

813

Geometrical Researches on the Theory of Parallels

820

JANOS BOLYAI
(1802-1860) '
His Life and Work

743

The Science of Absolute Space

750

EVARISTE GALOIS
(1811-1832)

His Life and Work

797

On the conditions that an equation be soluble by radicals

807

Of the primitive equations which are soluble by radicals

820

On Groups and Equations and Abelian Integrals

828

GEORGE BOOLE
(1815-1864)

His Life and Work

An Investigation of the laws of Thought

835
842

BERNHARD RIEMANN
(1826-1866)

His Life and Work

On the Representability of a Function by Means of a
Trigonometric Series (Ueber die Darstellbarkeit eine Function
durch einer trigonometrische Reihe)

979
!

992

On the Hypotheses which lie at the'Bases of Geometry (Ueber

die Hypothesen, welche der Geometrie zu Grunde liegen)

XI

1031

CONTENTS

On the Number of Prime Numbers Less than a Given Quantity

(Ueber die Anzahl der Primzahlen unter einer gegebenen Grosse)

1042

KARL WEIERSTRASS
(1815-1897)

His Life and Work

1053

Selected Chapters on the Theory of Functions, Lecture Given in Berlin

in 1886, with the Inaugural Academic Speech, Berlin

1857

7 Gleichmassige Stetigkeit (Uniform Continuity)

1060

RICHARD DEDEKIND
(1831-1916)

His Life and Work

1067

Essays on the Theory of Numbers

1072

GEORG CANTOR
(1848-1918)

His Life and Work

Selections from Contributions to the Founding of the Theory
ofTransfinite Numbers
Articles I and II

1131

1137

HENRI LEBESGUE
(1875-1941)

His Life and Work

Selections from Integrale, Longeur, Aire (Intergral, Length, Area)
Preliminaries and Integral .

1207
1212

KURT GODEL
(1906-1978)

His Life and Work

On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia
and Related Systems

1555
Mathematica
1263

ALAN TURING
(1912-1954)

His Life and Work

1285

On computable numbers with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem,

Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society

XII

1293