Robert Recorde

Robert Recorde was the first person to write an original book on arithmetic in English, rather than the then-standard Latin or Greek-and thus the first to write about math in a way that ordinary people could understand. He was, in effect, the first mathematics teacher in the English-speaking world. This biography-the first to provide a comprehensive overview of Recorde's life and work-traces the major influences on his study and his writing and charts his contribution made to the development of mathematical and scientific thinking in Europe.