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There is no getting out of it. Through and through the world is infected with quantity. To talk sense is to talk in quantities. . . . You cannot evade quantity. You may fly to poetry and to music, and quantity and number will face you in your rhythms and your octaves. Elegant intellects which despise the theory of quantity are but half developed. They are more to be pitied than blamed.
The Aims of Education, 1917
Loci: Convergence
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Mathematical Treasures
Index to the Collection
Images of selected pages from the following items from the Plimpton and Smith Collections are now available here. Click on the name of the document to go to the illustration(s), where more information is given. (Note that this article is "under construction". We will continue to add other items throughout 2013.)
| Author | Title | Date |
| Agnesi, Maria Gaetana | Instituzioni analitiche (8 images) | 1748 |
| Alberti, Giuseppe | Instruzione per l'ingenero | 1774 |
| Al-Khwarizmi, Muhammad | Algebra | Original dates to ~825 |
| Al-Tusi, Nasir al-Din | Commentary on Euclid | |
| Anonymous | Austrian measuring rod | 1732 |
| Anonymous | Austrian weights | 18th century |
| Anonymous | English gauger's scale | 18th century |
| Anonymous | English tally sticks (5 images) | 1296 |
| Anonymous | German protractor | 1700 |
| Anonymous | Italian armillary sphere | 1550 |
| Anonymous | Italian compass | 15th century |
| Anonymous | Korean sangi rods (2 images) | 19th century |
| Apianus, Petrus | Instrumentum sinuum | 1534 |
| Introductio geographica | 1534 | |
| Barozzi, Francesco | Procli Diadochi (2 images) | 1560 |
| Barrow, Isaac | Geometrical Lectures | 1735 ed. |
| Archimedes, Apollonius, Theodosius | 1675 | |
| Euclid's Elements (2 images) | 1665 | |
| Benedetto da Firenze | Trattato d'arismetriche | c. 1460 |
| Bernoulli, Jacob | Ars Conjectandi | 1713 |
| Bettini, Mario | Aerarium Philosophiae Mathematicae (5 images) | 1648 |
| Bhaskara | Lilavati (2 images) | 1650 |
| Böschenstein, Johann | Ain neu geordnet Rechenbiechlin (3 images) | 1514 |
| Boethius, Anicius Manlius | Arithmetic (2 images) | 1294 manuscript |
| Liber Circuli | 1503 | |
| Bossut, Charles | Traite elementaire de geometrie (6 images) | 1775 |
| Brahe, Tycho | Astronomiae instauratae (2 images) | 1602 |
| Cardano, Gerolamo | Ars Magna | 1545 |
| Practica Arithmetice (5 images) | 1539 | |
| Clavius, Christopher S.J. | Opera mathematica (2 images) | 1612 |
| Epitome arithmetica practica (2 images) | 1584 | |
| Edition of Euclid (2 images) | 1574 | |
| de Witt, Jan | Elements of Curves (5 images) | 1683 |
| Desargues, Girard | Universal Way of Dyaling | 1659 |
| Descartes, René | Discourse on Method | 1637 |
| Digges, Leonard | Tectonicon (4 images) | 1634 (original 1556) |
| Digges, Thomas | Pantometria (3 images) | 1571 |
| Dürer, Albrecht | Treatise on Mensuration (4 images) | 1538 |
| Emerson, William | Treatise of Algebra (5 images) | 1764 |
| Euclid | 14th century manuscript (3 images) | 1390 |
| Euclid | Late 13th century manuscript (5 images) | 1294 |
| Euclid | Oliver Byrne's edition (3 images) | 1847 |
| Euclid | Henry Billingsley edition (2 images) | 1570 |
| Euler, Leonhard | Algebra (in French) | 1795 |
| Calculus of Variations | 1744 | |
| Integral Calculus (3 images) | 1768 | |
| Analysis of the Infinite (4 images) | 1748 | |
| Eyre, John | The Exact Surveyor (2 images) | 1654 |
| Faulhaber, Johann | Academia Algebrae (2 images) | 1631 |
| Feliciano, Francisco | Libro di Arithmetica i Geometria (3 images) | 1536 |
| Fine, Oronce | Geometry | 1551 |
| Le sphere du monde (3 images) | 1551 | |
| Frisius, Gemma | Arithmeticae Methodus Facilis (3 images) | 1540 |
| Galilei, Galileo | Siderius Nuncius (2 images) | 1610 |
| Geometrical Compass (2 images) | 1640 | |
| Ghaligai, Francesco | Practica d'Arithmetica (3 images) | 1552 |
| Honoratus | Opus Arithmetica (2 images) | c. 1560 |
| Huygens, Christiaan | De Circuli Magnitude Inventa | 1654 |
| Jacob, Simon | Rechenbuch (7 images) | 1565/1599 |
| Jordanus de Nemore | Arithmetica | |
| Kepler, Johann | Rudolphine Tables | 1627 |
| Uralten messekunst Archimedes | 1616 | |
| Epitome of Copernican Astronomy (2 images) | 1619 | |
| Chilias Logarithmorum | 1624 | |
| Khayyam, Omar | Algebra | Original dates to ~1100 |
| Köbel, Jacob | Geometry (4 images) | 1608 |
| Lacroix, Sylvestre | Calculus of Probability (2 images) | 1816 |
| Lagrange, Joseph-Louis | Analytical Mechanics (2 images) | 1788 |
| Laplace, Pierre-Simon | Celestial Mechanics (2 images) | 1829 |
| Legendre, Adrien-Marie | Elements of Geometry (2 images) | 1825 |
| Leibniz, Gottfried | Correspondence (3 images) | 1740 |
| Maseres, Francis | Doctrine of Permutations (3 images) | 1795 |
| Maurolycus, Franciscus | Arithmeticorum libri duo (6 images) | 1575 |
| Mersenne, Marin | Universal Geometry | 1644 |
| Monge, Gaspard | Descriptive Geometry (2 images) | 1811 |
| Moore, Jonas | Moore's Arithmetick in Four Books (5 images) | 1688 |
| Newton, Isaac | Collected Works (5 images) | 1779 |
| Pacioli, Luca | Divine Proportion (2 images) | 1509 |
| Summa (3 images) | 1494 | |
| Pitiscus, Bartholomew | Trigonometry (2 images) | 1600 |
| Qadi Zada al-Rumi | Geometry | 16th c. (original 1412) |
| Ramus, Peter | The Way to Geometry (2 images) | 1636 |
| Recorde, Robert | Pathway to Knowledge | 1551 |
| Grounde of Artes (4 images) | 1543 | |
| Whetstone of Witte (6 images) | 1557 | |
| Regiomontanus | On Triangles (2 images) | 1533 |
| Reisch, Gregor | Margarita philosophica (6 images) | 1503 |
| Riese, Adam | Rechenbuch (2 images) | 1550 |
| Sabeus, Bernard | Italian astrolabe | 1558 |
| Sault, Richard | New Treatise of Algebra (5 images) | 1694 |
| Scheubel, Johann | De numeris (2 images) | 1545 |
| Schooten, Frans van | Exercitationes mathematicae (7 images) | 1657 |
| Seki Kowa | Essentials of Mathematics (2 images) | 1712 |
| Stevin, Simon | Oeuvres Mathematiques (5 images) | 1634 |
| Stifel, Michael | Arithmetica Integra (5 images) | 1544 |
| Tartaglia, Niccolo | Nova Scientia (2 images) | 1537 |
| Treatise on Number, Measure (2 images) | 1556 | |
| Unknown | Plimpton 322 | c. 1850 BCE |
| Unknown | Treviso Arithmetic | 1478 |
| Unknown | Antichissimo di algorismo (2 images) | 14th century |
| Unknown | Zhoubi suanjing (2 images) | 1603 (original from 100 BCE) |
| Unknown | Jiuzhang suanshu | 1603 (original from c. 250 CE) |
| Van Heuraet, Hendrick | Rectification of Curves (3 images) | 1659 |
| Wallis, John | Treatise of Algebra (4 images) | 1685 |
| Ward, John | Compendium of Algebra (3 images) | 1724 |
| Wolff, Christian | Treatise of Algebra (5 images) | 1765 |
| Zubler, Leonhard |
Nova Instrumentum Geometricum (5 images) | 1607 |