An essay on the history of inequalities (Q1584632)

The author is himself a distinguished researcher on inequalities and refers to several volumes on inequalities and their history, partly written in collaboration with D. S. Mitrinović (1970-1993, and forthcoming). Fink sees two ``watershed events'' in the history of inequalities, namely the papers of Chebyshev in 1882 and the presidential address of Hardy in 1928 (as president of the London Mathematical Society, from which Fink quotes extensively) followed by the publication of the book ``Inequalities'' by G. H. Hardy, J. E. Littlewood, and G. Pólya of 1934 (Zbl 0010.10703). The author considers ``four threads of inequality results in the period between Newton and approximately 1900'' (p. 121). But he argues that the period of general and ``named'' inequalities as opposed to ad hoc inequalities was still to come and was connected to an understanding of mathematics as a pure science as exemplified in Hardy's work. The article has a number of misprints in the names and in the bibliography.