Edward Kasner, James Newman

A finely bound, tenth edition of the mathematics book Mathematics And The Imagination, the first popular appearance of the word ‘googol.’

• Edward Kasner (American).
• James Newman (American).
• Mathematics and the Imagination: With drawings and diagrams by Rufus Isaacs.
• New York: Simon and Schuster, 1947.
• Octavo.
• 380 pages.
• Illustrations throughout the text.
• Bound in blue crushed morroco prize binding, spine gilt in compartments, boards blocked in gilt with the crest of the Choate Rosemary Hall School, gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers, prize bookplate and inscription.

Tenth edition of this surprise hit, first published in 1940 and described by science historian I. Bernard Cohen as, ‘the best account of modern mathematics that we have... written in a graceful style, combining clarity of exposition with good humor’ (Cohen, review in Isis, June 1942). A handsomely bound prize copy awarded by the Choate Rosemary Hall school in Wallingford, Connecticut, for excellence in mathematics in 1951. Recipient James Patrick Griffin would go onto become a respected philosopher, holding the White’s Chair of Moral Philosophy at Oxford between 1996 and his death in 2019.

Mathematics and the Imagination covers complex mathematics, such as paradoxes, infinite sets, and unusual geometries, in clear language with numerous helpful illustrations. It is best known today for popularizing the term ‘googol’, later to be mis-spelled when chosen as the name of the search company. Author Edward Kasner (1878-1955) was a Columbia professor who specialized in differential equations, and asked his young nephew to come up with a word for a large yet still finite number (one followed by a hundred zeroes). The term is introduced in chapter two, which is ‘a very serious attempt to show how misused is the term infinite when applied to large and finite numbers’ (Ryan, review in American Mathematical Monthly, December 1940). Kasner’s co-author, James R. Newman (1907-1966) was not only a mathematician but also a lawyer and high-ranking diplomat, who served as Chief Intelligence Officer at the US Embassy in London and Counsel to the US Senate Committee on Atomic Energy, in which capacity he helped to draft the Atomic Energy Act of 1946.

James Patrick Griffin (bookplate)