A Treatise on Algebraic Plane Curves

Abstract

THERE was a time, not so very long ago, when the words geometry and mathematics were almost synonymous, To-day the pure mathematicians, in every country except one, are nearly always analysts; even the minority who still call themselves geometers generally occupy themselves with some of the differential aspects, avoiding diagrams and filling their pages with symbols, as if they felt that their continued existence depended upon conforming as much as possible to the fashions prescribed by the all-powerful analysts. But we need not despair; rare animals have been saved from extinction by measures of protection taken just in time, and now Prof. J. L. Coolidge comes to the assistance of algebraic geometers with a book written in the spirit of and dedicated to the geometers of Italy, the only land in which they still flourish. A Treatise on Algebraic Plane Curves. Prof. J. L. Coolidge. Pp. xxiv + 513. (Oxford: Clarendon Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1931.) 30s. net.