Zero to Infinity: A History of Numbers [repost]

What is your definition of number? The question is a challenging one because defining the abstract idea of number is extremely difficult. More than 2,500 years ago, the great number enthusiast Pythagoras described number as "the first principle, a thing which is undefined, incomprehensible, and having in itself all numbers." Even today, we still struggle with the notion of what numbers mean. Numbers neither came to us fully formed in nature nor did they spring fully formed from the human mind. Like other ideas, they have evolved slowly throughout human history. Both practical and abstract, they are important in our everyday world but remain mysterious in our imaginations. If numbers are precision personified, why does a precise, accurate, and satisfying definition of number still elude us?

The 24 lectures of Zero to Infinity: A History of Numbers explore this fascinating question and the equally fascinating history of numbers. Award-winning Professor of Mathematics Edward B. Burger's historical, global, and conceptual approach to numbers gives you not only a revealing tour of mathematical history but shows how and why numbers evolved, as well as the transforming implications of each advance for both mathematics and society.

01. The Ever-Evolving Notion of Number
02. The Dawn of Numbers
03. Speaking the Language of Numbers
04. The Dramatic Digits—The Power of Zero
05. The Magical and Spiritual Allure of Numbers
06. Nature's Numbers—Patterns without People
07. Numbers of Prime Importance
08. Challenging the Rationality of Numbers
09. Walk the (Number) Line
10. The Commonplace Chaos among Real Numbers
11. A Beautiful Dusting of Zeroes and Twos
12. An Intuitive Sojourn into Arithmetic
13. The Story of pi
14. The Story of Euler's e
15. Transcendental Numbers
16. An Algebraic Approach to Numbers
17. The Five Most Important Numbers
18. An Analytic Approach to Numbers
19. A New Breed of Numbers
20. The Notion of Transfinite Numbers
21. Collections Too Infinite to Count
22. In and Out—The Road to a Third Infinity
23. Infinity—What We Know and What We Don't
24. The Endless Frontier of Number