*Very Short Introductions *: Brilliant, sharp, inspiring *The 17th-century calculus of Newton and Leibniz was built on shaky foundations, and it wasn't until the 18th and 19th centuries that mathematicians--especially Bolzano, Cauchy, and Weierstrass--began to establish a rigorous basis for the subj...

*Very Short Introductions *: Brilliant, sharp, inspiring *The 17th-century calculus of Newton and Leibniz was built on shaky foundations, and it wasn't until the 18th and 19th centuries that mathematicians--especially Bolzano, Cauchy, and Weierstrass--began to establish a rigorous basis for the subject. The resulting discipline is now known to mathematicians as analysis *. This book, aimed at readers with some grounding in mathematics, describes the nascent evolution of mathematical analysis, its development as a subject in its own right, and its wide-ranging applications in mathematics and science, modelling reality from acoustics to fluid dynamics, from biological systems to quantum theory. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.