Pub Date : 2018-04-13DOI: 10.1080/17498430.2018.1457342
Christián C. Carman
The strong storm coming from the east was ruthless. The captain would pay a high price for ignoring that his ship was too old to endure yet another trip with excess weight: bronze and marble statue...
{"title":"A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World, by Alexander Jones","authors":"Christián C. Carman","doi":"10.1080/17498430.2018.1457342","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17498430.2018.1457342","url":null,"abstract":"The strong storm coming from the east was ruthless. The captain would pay a high price for ignoring that his ship was too old to endure yet another trip with excess weight: bronze and marble statue...","PeriodicalId":211442,"journal":{"name":"BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-04-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128417451","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-03-28DOI: 10.1080/17498430.2018.1450034
E. Robertson
{"title":"Giovanni Domenico Cassini: A Modern Astronomer in the 17th Century, by Gabriella Bernardi","authors":"E. Robertson","doi":"10.1080/17498430.2018.1450034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17498430.2018.1450034","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":211442,"journal":{"name":"BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115108116","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-02-26DOI: 10.1080/17498430.2018.1437244
L. Verburgt
The paper discusses the background to and provides a transcription of a letter from Robert Leslie Ellis (1817–59) to William Walton (1813–1901) of 1849 on probability theory.
{"title":"A letter of Robert Leslie Ellis to William Walton on probability","authors":"L. Verburgt","doi":"10.1080/17498430.2018.1437244","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17498430.2018.1437244","url":null,"abstract":"The paper discusses the background to and provides a transcription of a letter from Robert Leslie Ellis (1817–59) to William Walton (1813–1901) of 1849 on probability theory.","PeriodicalId":211442,"journal":{"name":"BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125320003","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-02-13DOI: 10.1080/17498430.2017.1419700
R. Calinger
{"title":"The early period of the calculus of variations, by Paolo Freguglia and Mariano Giaquinta","authors":"R. Calinger","doi":"10.1080/17498430.2017.1419700","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17498430.2017.1419700","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":211442,"journal":{"name":"BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115791256","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-01-18DOI: 10.1080/17498430.2017.1419704
Fàtima Romero-Vallhonesta, M. Massa-Esteve
One of the main changes in European Renaissance mathematics was the progressive development of algebra from practical arithmetic, in which equations and operations began to be written with abbreviations and symbols, rather than in the rhetorical way found in earlier arithmetical texts. In Spain, the introduction of algebraic procedures was mainly achieved through certain commercial or arithmetical texts, in which a section was devoted to algebra or the ‘Arte Mayor’. This paper deals with the contents of the first arithmetical texts containing sections on algebra. These allow us to determine how algebraic ideas were introduced into Spain and what their main sources were. The first printed arithmetical Spanish text containing algebra was the Libro primero de Arithmetica Algebratica (1552) by Marco Aurel. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyse the possible sources of this book and show the major influence of the German text Coss (1525) by Christoff Rudolff, on Aurel's work.
{"title":"The main sources for the Arte Mayor in sixteenth century Spain","authors":"Fàtima Romero-Vallhonesta, M. Massa-Esteve","doi":"10.1080/17498430.2017.1419704","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17498430.2017.1419704","url":null,"abstract":"One of the main changes in European Renaissance mathematics was the progressive development of algebra from practical arithmetic, in which equations and operations began to be written with abbreviations and symbols, rather than in the rhetorical way found in earlier arithmetical texts. In Spain, the introduction of algebraic procedures was mainly achieved through certain commercial or arithmetical texts, in which a section was devoted to algebra or the ‘Arte Mayor’. This paper deals with the contents of the first arithmetical texts containing sections on algebra. These allow us to determine how algebraic ideas were introduced into Spain and what their main sources were. The first printed arithmetical Spanish text containing algebra was the Libro primero de Arithmetica Algebratica (1552) by Marco Aurel. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyse the possible sources of this book and show the major influence of the German text Coss (1525) by Christoff Rudolff, on Aurel's work.","PeriodicalId":211442,"journal":{"name":"BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121086949","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17498430.2016.1244748
Christopher D. Hollings
{"title":"The case of Academician Nikolai Nikolaevich Luzin, by Sergei S Demidov and Boris V Lëvshin, translated from the Russian by Roger Cooke","authors":"Christopher D. Hollings","doi":"10.1080/17498430.2016.1244748","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17498430.2016.1244748","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":211442,"journal":{"name":"BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115714959","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17498430.2017.1308126
A. Davis
O nly when university education is fully open to ‘women on equal terms with men’ is it proper to say that it is possible for (almost) everybody to study mathematics to whatever level they can attain. Unfortunately, there has not yet been an account of the beginnings of comprehensive university education for women in the British Isles: accordingly, we will use the narrower range of material available in the meantime. The whole of the British Isles has been included in the Davis Historical Archive, a survey of women mathematical graduates 1878–1940, and the result incorporated in the MacTutor Archive, and this will provide the data to enable us to make some comments on the situation in the first twenty-five years. (The ramifications of a social background with many common features will probably apply to all women university graduates but can at present be justified only with reference to the cohort who studied mathematics. And, while we are restricted by the data currently available, to discussing a particular university in England, the conclusions inferred will almost certainly apply in the same social context throughout the UK—and even, by anecdotal evidence, to prosperous middle-class daughters in the USA.) In earlier times, enthusiastic young men had always been able to find some way of learning mathematics—the only barrier would have been financial, and this was overcome partly by the gradual development of a network of evening classes and also, for practical mathematics, through the apprentice system. By contrast, mathematics tuition was hardly ever available for young women, unless they were fortunate enough to have a father, brother, or husband with mathematical skills who would spare the time to help them develop the necessary background (often in return for assistance with routine calculations). Formal university education (our present interest) became available to women only in the later part of the Victorian era. University College London was founded (1826) to provide freedom from religious constraint, and was the first institution to be incorporated into the University of London (1836). However, it was not until half a century later that the University freed itself from the limitations of single-sex blinkers and, in 1878, amended its Charter to become the first to admit women. Unfortunately no historian has yet tackled
{"title":"Woman into Mathematician:1 The opening of university mathematical education to women in the British Isles: a prosopographical note","authors":"A. Davis","doi":"10.1080/17498430.2017.1308126","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17498430.2017.1308126","url":null,"abstract":"O nly when university education is fully open to ‘women on equal terms with men’ is it proper to say that it is possible for (almost) everybody to study mathematics to whatever level they can attain. Unfortunately, there has not yet been an account of the beginnings of comprehensive university education for women in the British Isles: accordingly, we will use the narrower range of material available in the meantime. The whole of the British Isles has been included in the Davis Historical Archive, a survey of women mathematical graduates 1878–1940, and the result incorporated in the MacTutor Archive, and this will provide the data to enable us to make some comments on the situation in the first twenty-five years. (The ramifications of a social background with many common features will probably apply to all women university graduates but can at present be justified only with reference to the cohort who studied mathematics. And, while we are restricted by the data currently available, to discussing a particular university in England, the conclusions inferred will almost certainly apply in the same social context throughout the UK—and even, by anecdotal evidence, to prosperous middle-class daughters in the USA.) In earlier times, enthusiastic young men had always been able to find some way of learning mathematics—the only barrier would have been financial, and this was overcome partly by the gradual development of a network of evening classes and also, for practical mathematics, through the apprentice system. By contrast, mathematics tuition was hardly ever available for young women, unless they were fortunate enough to have a father, brother, or husband with mathematical skills who would spare the time to help them develop the necessary background (often in return for assistance with routine calculations). Formal university education (our present interest) became available to women only in the later part of the Victorian era. University College London was founded (1826) to provide freedom from religious constraint, and was the first institution to be incorporated into the University of London (1836). However, it was not until half a century later that the University freed itself from the limitations of single-sex blinkers and, in 1878, amended its Charter to become the first to admit women. Unfortunately no historian has yet tackled","PeriodicalId":211442,"journal":{"name":"BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125164848","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17498430.2017.1384201
Kate McCallum
Mathematics: the Winton Gallery strives, like any exhibition concerning mathematics, to make meaningful contact between the abstruse realms of mathematics and the viewing audience. Unlike many other exhibitions, this is here accomplished by displaying a rich range of objects that demonstrate the essential role of mathematics in the world by emphasizing connections to the viewers’ existing cognitive environments. Through a focus on the ways that mathematical work affects and informs our human world, the exhibition succeeds in connecting a mathematical way of thinking with the lives of the viewing public in a complex and profound way, in exchange for their efforts and attention. While an approach which places the interweave of life and mathematics at its centre may invite worries about the representation of pure mathematics or whether such a strategy insulates the viewer from an understanding of ‘real’ mathematics, what this exhibition does is to offer a sense of the mind-set that underscores mathematical work. By revealing the implications of this mode of thought, the exhibition encourages the audience to understand their own lives and world in a more mathematically-oriented way, while also encouraging them to understand mathematics in terms of the ways their human world is already formed.
{"title":"Mathematics, manifest: a review of Mathematics: the Winton Gallery at the Science Museum","authors":"Kate McCallum","doi":"10.1080/17498430.2017.1384201","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17498430.2017.1384201","url":null,"abstract":"Mathematics: the Winton Gallery strives, like any exhibition concerning mathematics, to make meaningful contact between the abstruse realms of mathematics and the viewing audience. Unlike many other exhibitions, this is here accomplished by displaying a rich range of objects that demonstrate the essential role of mathematics in the world by emphasizing connections to the viewers’ existing cognitive environments. Through a focus on the ways that mathematical work affects and informs our human world, the exhibition succeeds in connecting a mathematical way of thinking with the lives of the viewing public in a complex and profound way, in exchange for their efforts and attention. While an approach which places the interweave of life and mathematics at its centre may invite worries about the representation of pure mathematics or whether such a strategy insulates the viewer from an understanding of ‘real’ mathematics, what this exhibition does is to offer a sense of the mind-set that underscores mathematical work. By revealing the implications of this mode of thought, the exhibition encourages the audience to understand their own lives and world in a more mathematically-oriented way, while also encouraging them to understand mathematics in terms of the ways their human world is already formed.","PeriodicalId":211442,"journal":{"name":"BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117086970","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17498430.2017.1400821
Anne van Weerden, Steven A. Wepster
The Irish mathematician Sir William Rowan Hamilton (1805–65) is often portrayed as an unhappily married alcoholic. We show how this image originated in the 1840s, caused by a combination of the strict social rules of the Victorian era and the then changing drinking habits in Ireland. In the 1880s Hamilton's biographer Graves tried to restore Hamilton's reputation by blaming Lady Hamilton for her husband's habits. This unintentionally caused his biography to become the basis of Hamilton's overall negative image. We argue for a far more positive description of Hamilton's private life. Thereafter we trace the evolution of the negative image using an anecdote about Hamilton's work habits and its increasingly distorted representations.
{"title":"A most gossiped about genius: Sir William Rowan Hamilton","authors":"Anne van Weerden, Steven A. Wepster","doi":"10.1080/17498430.2017.1400821","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17498430.2017.1400821","url":null,"abstract":"The Irish mathematician Sir William Rowan Hamilton (1805–65) is often portrayed as an unhappily married alcoholic. We show how this image originated in the 1840s, caused by a combination of the strict social rules of the Victorian era and the then changing drinking habits in Ireland. In the 1880s Hamilton's biographer Graves tried to restore Hamilton's reputation by blaming Lady Hamilton for her husband's habits. This unintentionally caused his biography to become the basis of Hamilton's overall negative image. We argue for a far more positive description of Hamilton's private life. Thereafter we trace the evolution of the negative image using an anecdote about Hamilton's work habits and its increasingly distorted representations.","PeriodicalId":211442,"journal":{"name":"BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127247353","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17498430.2017.1308122
Jocelyn Rodal
{"title":"Literature after Euclid: the geometric imagination in the long Scottish Enlightenment, by Matthew Wickman","authors":"Jocelyn Rodal","doi":"10.1080/17498430.2017.1308122","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17498430.2017.1308122","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":211442,"journal":{"name":"BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116035785","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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