More mathematics books by women
A year ago, for International Women’s Day, I made a list of mathematics books by women covered by then-new Wikipedia articles. I thought it would be worthwhile to revisit the same topic and list several more mathematics books with at least one female author, at many different levels of audience, and again covered by new Wikipedia articles. They are (alphabetical by title):
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Algorithmic Combinatorics on Partial Words (2008), Francine Blanchet-Sadri. Partial words are strings with “don’t care” symbols; Blanchet-Sadri looks at the combinatorics of repeated patterns within these strings.
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Algorithmic Geometry (1995), Jean-Daniel Boissonnat and Mariette Yvinec. One of several standard computational geometry textbooks; this is the French one, but it has also been published in translation into English.
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Algorithmic Puzzles (2011), Anany and Maria Levitin. A nice collection of classic logic puzzles involving algorithmic thinking.
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Braids, Links, and Mapping Class Groups (1975), Joan Birman. A classic research monograph on the topology of braid groups.
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Code of the Quipu (1981), Marcia and Robert Ascher. A general-audience book on how the Inca used knotted strings to record numbers and other information.
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Combinatorics: The Rota Way (2009), Joseph P. S. Kung, Catherine Yan, and (posthumously) Gian-Carlo Rota. A graduate textbook on algebraic combinatorics.
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Combinatorics of Experimental Design (1987), Anne Penfold Street and her daughter Deborah Street. A textbook on the design of experiments, an area that crosses between statistics and combinatorics.
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Computability in Analysis and Physics (1989), Marian Pour-El and J. Ian Richards. A research monograph on problems involving differential equations including the wave equation whose initial conditions are continuous and computable, but that evolve to states whose values cannot be computed.
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Diophantus and Diophantine Equations (1972), Isabella Bashmakova. A somewhat idiosyncratic history based on the idea that Diophantus knew some very general techniques for finding rational-number solutions to equations, that can be inferred from the much more specific solutions to individual equations that have survived to us.
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Elementary Number Theory, Group Theory, and Ramanujan Graphs (2003), Giuliana Davidoff, Peter Sarnak, and Alain Valette. An attempt to make the construction of expander graphs accessible to undergraduate mathematics students.
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Equivalents of the Axiom of Choice (1963, updated 1985), Herman and Jean Rubin. A large catalog of problems in mathematics whose solution is equivalent to the axiom of choice, from a time when the independence of choice from ZF set theory had not been proven.
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Erdős on Graphs: His Legacy of Unsolved Problems (1998), Fan Chung and Ronald Graham. The open problems in graph theory from this book have been further collected and updated on a web site, Erdős’s Problems on Graphs, maintained by Chung.
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Extensions of First Order Logic (1996), María Manzano. Attempts to unify second-order logic, modal logic, and dynamic logic, by translating them all into many-sorted logic.
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Fat Chance: Probability from 0 to 1 (2019), Benedict Gross, Joe Harris, and Emily Riehl. A general-audience undergraduate textbook on probability theory based on a metaphor of games of chance.
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The Fractal Dimension of Architecture (2016), Michael J. Ostwald and Josephine Vaughan. Studies the fractal dimension of floor plans as a way to model the changing demands on the complexity of housing structures and to classify buildings by architect and style.
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The Geometry of Numbers (2000), Carl D. Olds, Anneli Cahn Lax, and Giuliana Davidoff. A textbook on connections between number theory and integer grids, rescued twice from the posthumous works of its first two coauthors.
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The History of Mathematical Tables: from Sumer to Spreadsheets (2003), Martin Campbell-Kelly, Mary Croarken, Raymond Flood, and Eleanor Robson. An edited volume with chapters on tables from many different periods in mathematical history.
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Incidence and Symmetry in Design and Architecture (1983), Jenny Baglivo and Jack E. Graver. A textbook on graph theory and symmetry aimed at architecture students, also including interesting material on structural rigidity.
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Introduction to the Theory of Error-Correcting Codes (1982, updated 1989 and 1998), Vera Pless. An advanced undergraduate textbook centered on algebraic constructions of linear block codes.
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Introduction to 3-Manifolds (2014), Jennifer Schultens. An introductory graduate textbook on low-dimensional topology, leading up to the use of normal surfaces and Heegard splittings.
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Journey into Geometries (1991), Márta Svéd. A conversational Alice-in-wonderland-inspired tour of non-Euclidean geometry.
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Knots Unravelled: From String to Mathematics (2011), Meike Akveld and Andrew Jobbings. Knot theory for schoolchildren, centered on knot invariants.
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Lectures in Geometric Combinatorics (2006), Rekha R. Thomas. An advanced undergraduate or introductory graduate textbook on the combinatorics of convex polytopes and their connections to abstract algebra through secondary polytopes and toric varieties.
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Making Mathematics with Needlework: Ten Papers and Ten Projects (2008), sarah-marie belcastro and Carolyn Yackel. The projects come from eight different contributors and include photos, instructions, mathematical analyses, and teaching activities.
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Mathematical Excursions: Side Trips along Paths Not Generally Traveled in Elementary Courses in Mathematics (1933), Helen Abbot Merrill. An early book on recreational mathematics, aimed at getting high school students interested in mathematics.
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Mathematics in India: 500 BCE–1800 CE (2009), Kim Plofker. Organized chronologically, this has become the standard overview of this large topic. It also includes material on the history of astronomy in India, which was often tied to the mathematics of its era.
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The Mathematics of Chip-Firing (2018), Caroline Klivans. A textbook on chip-firing games and abelian sandpile models.
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Markov Chains and Mixing Times (2009, 2017), David A. Levin and Yuval Peres, with contributions by Elizabeth Wilmer. A graduate-level text and research reference on how quickly random walks converge to their stable distributions.
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Mirrors and Reflections: The Geometry of Finite Reflection Groups (2009), Alexandre V. and Anna Borovik. An undergraduate textbook on the classification of finite reflection groups and their associated root systems.
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Pioneering Women in American Mathematics: The Pre-1940 PhD’s (2009), Judy Green and Jeanne LaDuke. Biographical profiles of over 200 women who earned doctorates in mathematics in the US before 1940, with some background material on what it was like for women to work in mathematics in those times.
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Playing with Infinity: Mathematical Explorations and Excursions (1955, translated into English 1961), Rózsa Péter. An attempt to explain the nature of mathematics and of the infinite in mathematics to non-mathematicians, based on a series of letters from Péter to a literary friend.
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Point Processes (1980), David Cox and Valerie Isham. A research reference on processes that randomly place points on the real line or other geometric spaces.
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Power in Numbers: The Rebel Women of Mathematics (2018), Talithia Williams. A selection of profiles of famous women mathematicians, aimed at motivating young women to become mathematicians.
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Primality Testing for Beginners (2009, translated into English 2014), Lasse Rempe-Gillen and Rebecca Waldecker. An undergraduate text on primality testing algorithms, based on a course from a summer research program for undergraduates.
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Quantum Computing: A Gentle Introduction (2011), Eleanor Rieffel and Wolfgang Polak. One of many texts on this fast-moving subject.
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Robust Regression and Outlier Detection (1987), Peter Rousseeuw and Annick M. Leroy. A monograph on statistical methods that can tolerate the total corruption of a large fraction of the data points that they analyze, and still produce meaningful results.
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Two-Sided Matching: A Study in Game-Theoretic Modeling and Analysis (1990), Alvin E. Roth and Marilda Sotomayor. A survey of methods related to stable matching, aimed at economics practitioners and focused on applications.
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When Topology Meets Chemistry: A Topological Look At Molecular Chirality (2000), Erica Flapan. Many biomolecules are different than their mirror images; classical examples include sugars, whose mirrored molecules may taste different and have different effects. This undergraduate-level text studies how to model this effect using a combination of graph theory and knot theory.
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Women in Mathematics (1974), Lynn Osen. This is the one that based its coverage of Hypatia on an early-20th-century children’s book that gave her a made-up backstory and attributed made-up modern rationalist quotes to her. Not recommended, and included mainly as a warning not to use this as a reference.
To keep from ending on a sour note, I’ll add one more, that I found recently on Wikipedia (although the article there is very old) and I think is worthy of expansion: Logic Made Easy: How to Know When Language Deceives You (2004), Deborah J. Bennett, a popular-audience book on how to translate English phrases into logical formalisms and use that translation to understand more clearly what they mean.