Publisher's Synopsis
But where shall we start looking for points of view to help us consider what learning is, and what learning has to do with how we live within our world? We couldn't do better than to climb the two peaks that constitute the subject of this book. these are the classical geometry in which Apollonius presented the conic sections, and that modern transformation over which Descartes presided at its inception. In this effort, a useful link between our two primary texts is provided by examining some work done by Diophantus, by Pappus, and by Viète.
While the study of these writings is a formidable enterprise indeed, the two volumes of Insights and Manipulations, offering clear guidance and abundant help, greatly alleviate the requisite labor.