Often, the public thinks that scientific breakthroughs
happen when lone geniuses discover something new, but in reality, discoveries
occur when people improve upon the work of others. In ‘Infinite Powers’
Strogatz traces the methods used by Archimedes and moves on to Newton and
Leibniz, who refined the use of calculus. Along the way, with plenty of
illustrations and interesting insights we get to know about contributions from
Fermat, Galileo and Descartes. This apart the contributions of Indian, Arabic,
and Chinese mathematicians is also included, and the 'Infinite Powers' continues on to
Fourier, Katherine Johnson and Sophie Germain.
