Pub Date : 2017-05-08DOI: 10.1080/17498430.2017.1318249
Eva Kaufholz-Soldat
For more than a century, the life of the Russian mathematician and author Sofia Kovalevskaya1 1 Please note, that Kovalevskaya's name has been and still is spelled in various variants. See Audin 2011, 25–28. In quotations, as well as titles of books and articles, the spelling of the respective author will be used. (1850–91) has fascinated scholars and laymen alike. Among the many aspects discussed, her looks have aroused a significant interest. Hereby, a striking dichotomy becomes apparent, as she has been described both as rather unattractive or a ravishing beauty. Moreover, her beauty (or lack thereof) is often considered a pivotal issue in her vita and for her scientific career in particular. This article aims to present the scope of descriptions of Kovalevskaya's looks from the very first biographical accounts to her portrayal in modern literature, by highlighting some of the most influential examples in their historical context under special consideration of the changing views of the mathematician and women in science in general.
{"title":"‘[...] the first handsome mathematical lady I’ve ever seen!’ On the role of beauty in portrayals of Sofia Kovalevskaya","authors":"Eva Kaufholz-Soldat","doi":"10.1080/17498430.2017.1318249","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17498430.2017.1318249","url":null,"abstract":"For more than a century, the life of the Russian mathematician and author Sofia Kovalevskaya1 1 Please note, that Kovalevskaya's name has been and still is spelled in various variants. See Audin 2011, 25–28. In quotations, as well as titles of books and articles, the spelling of the respective author will be used. (1850–91) has fascinated scholars and laymen alike. Among the many aspects discussed, her looks have aroused a significant interest. Hereby, a striking dichotomy becomes apparent, as she has been described both as rather unattractive or a ravishing beauty. Moreover, her beauty (or lack thereof) is often considered a pivotal issue in her vita and for her scientific career in particular. This article aims to present the scope of descriptions of Kovalevskaya's looks from the very first biographical accounts to her portrayal in modern literature, by highlighting some of the most influential examples in their historical context under special consideration of the changing views of the mathematician and women in science in general.","PeriodicalId":211442,"journal":{"name":"BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127643106","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 : 2017-05-04DOI: 10.1080/17498430.2016.1236317
Robin Wilson
The Gresham Chair of Geometry is the oldest mathematics chair in England, and over the past four hundred years thirty-two Gresham professors have presented free lectures on mathematical topics to the general public. In this two-part article we outline the history of these appointments from the founding of Gresham College in 1596 to the present day. In particular, we mention the development of logarithms by Henry Briggs, describe how The Royal Society emerged from Gresham College in the early 1660s, and specify when the statistical terms standard deviation and histogram were first used.
{"title":"The Gresham Professors of Geometry Part 1: the first one hundred years","authors":"Robin Wilson","doi":"10.1080/17498430.2016.1236317","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17498430.2016.1236317","url":null,"abstract":"The Gresham Chair of Geometry is the oldest mathematics chair in England, and over the past four hundred years thirty-two Gresham professors have presented free lectures on mathematical topics to the general public. In this two-part article we outline the history of these appointments from the founding of Gresham College in 1596 to the present day. In particular, we mention the development of logarithms by Henry Briggs, describe how The Royal Society emerged from Gresham College in the early 1660s, and specify when the statistical terms standard deviation and histogram were first used.","PeriodicalId":211442,"journal":{"name":"BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121741207","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 : 2017-05-04DOI: 10.1080/17498430.2017.1314099
{"title":"News Sheet March 2017","authors":"","doi":"10.1080/17498430.2017.1314099","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17498430.2017.1314099","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":"2017-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131888476","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 : 2017-05-04DOI: 10.1080/17498430.2016.1236318
Robin Wilson
The Gresham Chair of Geometry is the oldest mathematics chair in England, and over the past four hundred years thirty-two Gresham professors have presented free lectures on mathematical topics to the general public. In this two-part article we outline the history of these appointments from the founding of Gresham College in 1596 to the present day. In particular, we mention the development of logarithms by Henry Briggs, describe how The Royal Society emerged from Gresham College in the early 1660s, and specify when the statistical terms standard deviation and histogram were first used.
{"title":"The Gresham Professors of Geometry Part 2: the next three hundred years","authors":"Robin Wilson","doi":"10.1080/17498430.2016.1236318","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17498430.2016.1236318","url":null,"abstract":"The Gresham Chair of Geometry is the oldest mathematics chair in England, and over the past four hundred years thirty-two Gresham professors have presented free lectures on mathematical topics to the general public. In this two-part article we outline the history of these appointments from the founding of Gresham College in 1596 to the present day. In particular, we mention the development of logarithms by Henry Briggs, describe how The Royal Society emerged from Gresham College in the early 1660s, and specify when the statistical terms standard deviation and histogram were first used.","PeriodicalId":211442,"journal":{"name":"BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120970283","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 : 2017-05-04DOI: 10.1080/17498430.2016.1233692
B. Fairbairn
The celebrated number theorist Louis Joel Mordell spent around two and a half decades working in Manchester and for most of the rest of his career he was based in St John's College, Cambridge. There was, however, a brief period when he was based in London. The standard biographies of Mordell's life by and largely tend to overlook this period almost to the point of being deceptive about it. In this paper we will address this imbalance by discussing this chapter in Mordell's life in more detail.
{"title":"Louis Joel Mordell's time in London","authors":"B. Fairbairn","doi":"10.1080/17498430.2016.1233692","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17498430.2016.1233692","url":null,"abstract":"The celebrated number theorist Louis Joel Mordell spent around two and a half decades working in Manchester and for most of the rest of his career he was based in St John's College, Cambridge. There was, however, a brief period when he was based in London. The standard biographies of Mordell's life by and largely tend to overlook this period almost to the point of being deceptive about it. In this paper we will address this imbalance by discussing this chapter in Mordell's life in more detail.","PeriodicalId":211442,"journal":{"name":"BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133694534","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 : 2017-05-04DOI: 10.1080/17498430.2016.1247323
Z. Yilmaz, Suat Eren Ozyigit
This paper aims to show that historical eras from the perspective of socio-political approaches can be linked to the context of mathematical real world problems in conformity with the eras they were used. Three mathematics high school textbooks were selected from the Hamidian era [1876–1909], Early Republican era [1923–28] and the Contemporary era [2002–]. A content analysis was carried out by taking the political events into consideration and linked them with the context of the problems. The problem contexts were examined under four general categories, military, gender, religion, and work force. Findings of the study indicated that mathematics could be related to socio-political aspects of history.
{"title":"Analysis of real world problems in mathematics textbooks of early twentieth and twenty-first century Turkish education: political and social reflections1","authors":"Z. Yilmaz, Suat Eren Ozyigit","doi":"10.1080/17498430.2016.1247323","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17498430.2016.1247323","url":null,"abstract":"This paper aims to show that historical eras from the perspective of socio-political approaches can be linked to the context of mathematical real world problems in conformity with the eras they were used. Three mathematics high school textbooks were selected from the Hamidian era [1876–1909], Early Republican era [1923–28] and the Contemporary era [2002–]. A content analysis was carried out by taking the political events into consideration and linked them with the context of the problems. The problem contexts were examined under four general categories, military, gender, religion, and work force. Findings of the study indicated that mathematics could be related to socio-political aspects of history.","PeriodicalId":211442,"journal":{"name":"BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128463923","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 : 2017-05-04DOI: 10.1080/17498430.2016.1244630
Joseph Gage
The nineteenth century was an important period for both Oxford mathematics and algebra in general. While there is extensive documentation of mathematical research in Oxford at this time, the same cannot be said of the teaching. The content of the course presents a different picture: it shows what those who set it felt was most valuable for a young mathematician to learn, perhaps indicating what direction they expected mathematics to take in the future. To find out what undergraduates were taught, I have looked through examination papers of the years between 1828 and 1912 with a focus on algebra, as well as supporting material. In this paper I will present my findings. I will give a picture of what an Oxford undergraduate's course in algebra looked like by the end of the nineteenth century and discuss my own conclusions as to why it took such a form.
{"title":"Undergraduate algebra in nineteenth-century Oxford","authors":"Joseph Gage","doi":"10.1080/17498430.2016.1244630","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17498430.2016.1244630","url":null,"abstract":"The nineteenth century was an important period for both Oxford mathematics and algebra in general. While there is extensive documentation of mathematical research in Oxford at this time, the same cannot be said of the teaching. The content of the course presents a different picture: it shows what those who set it felt was most valuable for a young mathematician to learn, perhaps indicating what direction they expected mathematics to take in the future. To find out what undergraduates were taught, I have looked through examination papers of the years between 1828 and 1912 with a focus on algebra, as well as supporting material. In this paper I will present my findings. I will give a picture of what an Oxford undergraduate's course in algebra looked like by the end of the nineteenth century and discuss my own conclusions as to why it took such a form.","PeriodicalId":211442,"journal":{"name":"BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134065616","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 : 2017-05-02DOI: 10.1080/17498430.2017.1278657
A. Craik
William Welwood (c.1552–1624) taught at St Andrews, Scotland's oldest university, where he was its first professor of mathematics, and later professor of law. As well as better-known legal works, he published a short pamphlet on hydraulics and pneumatics here discussed. After an outline of the fractious personal, religious, and political environment in which Welwood lived and worked, the content of his pamphlet is described. Its place is then examined within wider scientific and technological contexts.
{"title":"An early Scottish pamphlet on hydraulics and pneumatics: William Welwood's De aqua in altum per fistulas plumbeas facile exprimenda apologia demonstrativa (1582)","authors":"A. Craik","doi":"10.1080/17498430.2017.1278657","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17498430.2017.1278657","url":null,"abstract":"William Welwood (c.1552–1624) taught at St Andrews, Scotland's oldest university, where he was its first professor of mathematics, and later professor of law. As well as better-known legal works, he published a short pamphlet on hydraulics and pneumatics here discussed. After an outline of the fractious personal, religious, and political environment in which Welwood lived and worked, the content of his pamphlet is described. Its place is then examined within wider scientific and technological contexts.","PeriodicalId":211442,"journal":{"name":"BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114653730","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 : 2017-02-06DOI: 10.1080/17498430.2017.1281030
Masato Takei
In the paper by Daniel Tisdale, published in this journal, a ‘previously unpublished note’ by Jitsuro Nagura is reproduced and discussed. Actually, in 1956, this article was published in a bulletin of the Department of General Education, Rikkyo University.
{"title":"A remark on the paper ‘Sieve of war: the legacy of Jitsuro Nagura’ by Daniel Tisdale","authors":"Masato Takei","doi":"10.1080/17498430.2017.1281030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17498430.2017.1281030","url":null,"abstract":"In the paper by Daniel Tisdale, published in this journal, a ‘previously unpublished note’ by Jitsuro Nagura is reproduced and discussed. Actually, in 1956, this article was published in a bulletin of the Department of General Education, Rikkyo University.","PeriodicalId":211442,"journal":{"name":"BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129258164","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 : 2017-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17498430.2016.1220051
K. Parshall
Dr Philip Beeley (University of Oxford) ‘To the publicke advancement’. John Collins and the promotion of mathematical knowledge in Restoration England Up to now the history of mathematics has considered the intelligencer and mathematical practitioner John Collins only tangentially and not as a figure in his own right. There have been no scholarly articles devoted to him, nor has his contribution to the development of the mathematical sciences in England in the second half of the seventeenth century been examined. It was to correct this historical oversight that Jackie Stedall and the speaker decided to undertake the task of producing the first complete edition of Collins’s letters and to preface this edition with a biographical essay illuminating the different sides of a man who made the promotion of ‘mathematick learning’ the focus of his life’s work. Revisiting some of the ‘high end’ projects with which Collins was most closely associated, including the publication of Pell’s Algebra, and his attempted publication of the Kinckhuysen translation, the talk will consider the success of his promotional efforts in the context of the Royal Society against the background of his broader aim of expanding mathematical knowledge into less elevated social milieus. Dr Rosanna Cretney (University of Oxford) ‘Nor any Number can confine us’: The mathematical art of changes in early modern
Philip Beeley博士(牛津大学)“为了公众的进步”。约翰·柯林斯与英国复辟时期数学知识的推广到目前为止，数学史只把约翰·柯林斯看作是一个知识分子和数学实践者，而不是一个独立的人物。没有专门研究他的学术文章，也没有研究他对17世纪下半叶英国数学科学发展的贡献。正是为了纠正这一历史疏忽，Jackie Stedall和演讲者决定承担起制作第一版柯林斯书信的任务，并以一篇传记文章作为这一版本的序言，阐述了一个将促进“数学学习”作为其一生工作重点的人的不同方面。回顾一些与柯林斯最密切相关的“高端”项目，包括佩尔的《代数》的出版，以及他试图出版的金克休森译本，演讲将考虑他在皇家学会背景下的推广努力的成功，而他的更广泛的目标是将数学知识扩展到较低的社会环境中。Rosanna Cretney博士(牛津大学)“没有任何数字可以限制我们”:近代早期数学艺术的变化
{"title":"Mathematics Emerging: A Tribute to Jackie Stedall and her Influence on the History of Mathematics","authors":"K. Parshall","doi":"10.1080/17498430.2016.1220051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17498430.2016.1220051","url":null,"abstract":"Dr Philip Beeley (University of Oxford) ‘To the publicke advancement’. John Collins and the promotion of mathematical knowledge in Restoration England Up to now the history of mathematics has considered the intelligencer and mathematical practitioner John Collins only tangentially and not as a figure in his own right. There have been no scholarly articles devoted to him, nor has his contribution to the development of the mathematical sciences in England in the second half of the seventeenth century been examined. It was to correct this historical oversight that Jackie Stedall and the speaker decided to undertake the task of producing the first complete edition of Collins’s letters and to preface this edition with a biographical essay illuminating the different sides of a man who made the promotion of ‘mathematick learning’ the focus of his life’s work. Revisiting some of the ‘high end’ projects with which Collins was most closely associated, including the publication of Pell’s Algebra, and his attempted publication of the Kinckhuysen translation, the talk will consider the success of his promotional efforts in the context of the Royal Society against the background of his broader aim of expanding mathematical knowledge into less elevated social milieus. Dr Rosanna Cretney (University of Oxford) ‘Nor any Number can confine us’: The mathematical art of changes in early modern","PeriodicalId":211442,"journal":{"name":"BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134184988","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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