The Triumph of Numbers by Cohen, I. Bernard -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Cover Title Contents Foreword 1. A World of Numbers

Numbers Everywhere Numbers in History Numbers in the Bible: The Sin of King David Consequences of David’s Sin

2. New Worlds Based on Numbers

Kepler’s Harmonic Law Galileo and the Laws of Motion Numbers in the Life Sciences: Does the Blood Circulate? A First Exercise in Demography: How Many People Can the Earth Support? The Need for Life Tables A New World of Numbers Sir William Petty and Political Arithmetic

3. Numerology and Mystic Philosophy: Scientists at Play with Numbers

What’s in a Name? Converting Names into Numbers Numerology in Science A Crusader against Numerological Superstitions

4. Numbers in the Age of Reason

Hutcheson’s Moral Arithmetic Hale’s Numerical Plant and Animal Science Thomas Jefferson: A Life Regulated by Numbers Benjamin Franklin and Numbers Franklin and Malthus Franklin on Numbers and Smallpox

5. New Uses for Numbers

Numbers and Measures A Concern with Numbers in France: Lavoisier’s Essay on Political Arithmetic Sir John Sinclair’s Census of Scotland Pinel’s Medical Numbers Louis and the Numerical Method New Uses for Numbers: Innovations by Condorcet and Laplace

6. A Deluge of Statistics

Tables Galore Guerry’s Studies of Crime

7. Statistics Reaches Maturity: The Age of Quetelet

Numbers, Number Science, and Joyce’s Ulysses Quetelet’s World of Numbers The Budget of Crimes The Reliability of Statistics Comte versus Quetelet: Social Physics, or Sociology? What Did Quetelet Accomplish?

8. Critics of Statistics

Carlyle and Chartism Dickens and Statistics The Mudfog Association for the Advancement of Everything “Death’s Ciphering Book” Corresponding Disdain Facts and Figures: The Message of Hard Times

9. Florence Nightingale

Sanitary Reform: The Evidence of the Numbers A Passion for Statistics

Epilogue Acknowledgments Notes Literature List Index Also by I. Bernard Cohen Copyright