The Kenneth May Lectures have never before been published in book form

Important contributions to the history of mathematics by well-known historians of science

Should appeal to a wide audience due to its subject area and accessibility

During the past 25 years, set theory has developed in several interesting directions. The most outstanding results cover the application of sophisticated techniques to problems in analysis, topology, infinitary combinatorics and other areas of mathematics. This book contains a selection of contributions, some of which are expository in nature, embracing various aspects of the latest developments. Amongst topics treated are forcing axioms and their applications, combinatorial principles used to construct models, and a variety of other set theoretical tools including inner models, partitions and trees. Audience: This book will be of interest to graduate students and researchers in foundational problems of mathematics.

John Wallis (1616-1703) was the most influential English mathematician prior to Newton. He published his most famous work, Arithmetica Infinitorum, in Latin in 1656. This book studied the quadrature of curves and systematised the analysis of Descartes and Cavelieri. Upon publication, this text immediately became the standard book on the subject and was frequently referred to by subsequent writers. This will be the first English translation of this text ever to be published.

The main theme of this anthology is the unique interaction between mathematics, physics and philosophy during the beginning of the 20th century. In this book, ten renowned philosopher-historians probe insightfully into key conceptual questions of pre-quantum mathematical physics. The result is a diverse yet thematically focused compilation of first class papers on mathematics, physics and philosophy, and a source-book on the interaction between them.

This revised and greatly expanded edition of the Russian classic contains a wealth of new information about the lives of many great mathematicians and scientists, past and present. Written by a distinguished mathematician and featuring a unique mix of mathematics, physics, and history, this text combines original source material and provides careful explanations for some of the most significant discoveries in mathematics and physics. What emerges are intriguing, multifaceted biographies that will interest readers at all levels.

Discussions of the foundations of mathematics and their history are frequently restricted to logical issues in a narrow sense, or else to traditional problems of analytic philosophy. From Dedekind to Goedel: Essays on the Development of the Foundations of Mathematics illustrates the much greater variety of the actual developments in the foundations during the period covered. The viewpoints that serve this purpose included the foundational ideas of working mathematicians, such as Kronecker, Dedekind, Borel and the early Hilbert, and the development of notions like model and modelling, arbitrary function, completeness, and non-Archimedean structures. The philosophers discussed include not only the household names in logic, but also Husserl, Wittgenstein and Ramsey. Needless to say, such logically-oriented thinkers as Frege, Russell and Goedel are not entirely neglected, either. Audience: Everybody interested in the philosophy and/or history of mathematics will find this book interesting, giving frequently novel insights.

General textbooks, attempting to cover three thousand or so years of mathematical history, must necessarily oversimplify just about everything, the practice of which can scarcely promote a critical approach to the subject. To counter this, History of Mathematics offers deeper coverage of key select topics, providing students with material that could encourage more critical thinking. It also includes the proofs of important results which are typically neglected in the modern history of mathematics curriculum.

This book deals with the development of thinking under different cultural conditions, focusing on the evolution of mathematical thinking in the history of science and education. Starting from Piaget's genetic epistemology, it provides a conceptual framework for describing and explaining the development of cognition by reflective abstractions from systems of actions.

One can distinguish, roughly speaking, two different approaches to the philosophy of mathematics. On the one hand, some philosophers (and some mathematicians) take the nature and the results of mathematicians' activities as given, and go on to ask what philosophical morals one might perhaps find in their story. On the other hand, some philosophers, logicians and mathematicians have tried or are trying to subject the very concepts which mathematicians are using in their work to critical scrutiny. In practice this usually means scrutinizing the logical and linguistic tools mathematicians wield. Such scrutiny can scarcely help relying on philosophical ideas and principles. In other words it can scarcely help being literally a study of language, truth and logic in mathematics, albeit not necessarily in the spirit of AJ. Ayer. As its title indicates, the essays included in the present volume represent the latter approach. In most of them one of the fundamental concepts in the foundations of mathematics and logic is subjected to a scrutiny from a largely novel point of view. Typically, it turns out that the concept in question is in need of a revision or reconsideration or at least can be given a new twist. The results of such a re-examination are not primarily critical, however, but typically open up new constructive possibilities. The consequences of such deconstructions and reconstructions are often quite sweeping, and are explored in the same paper or in others.

A translation of Hilberts "Theorie der algebraischen Zahlk rper" best known as the "Zahlbericht," first published in 1897, in which he provides an elegantly integrated overview of the development of algebraic number theory up to the end of the nineteenth century. The Zahlbericht also provided a firm foundation for further research in the theory, and can be seen as the starting point for all twentieth century investigations into the subject, as well as reciprocity laws and class field theory. This English edition further contains an introduction by F. Lemmermeyer and N. Schappacher.

To a large extent, it lies, no doubt, in what is presented in this work under the title of meta lever, a method which it is certainly interesting to develop and further refine. There exists in mathematics courses a strange prudery which forbids one to ask questions such as, Why are we doing this? -, At what is the objective aimed? -, whereas it is usually easy to reply to such questions, to keep them in mind, and to show that one can challenge these questions and modify the objectives to be more productive or more useful. If we don t do this we give a false impression of a gratuitous or arbitrary interpretation of a discipline whose rules are far from being unmotivated or unfounded. One must also consider the time aspect. Simple ideas take a long time to be conceived. Should we not therefore allow the students time to familiarize themselves with new notions? And must we not also recognize that this length of time is generally longer than that ofthe official length of time accorded to this teaching and that we should be counting in years? When the rudiments of linear algebra were taught at the level of the lycee (college level), the task of first year university teachers was certainly easier: for sure the student's knowledge was not very deep, however it was not negligible and it allowed them to reach a deeper understanding more quickly."

David Hilbert (1862-1943) was the most influential mathematician of the early twentieth century and, together with Henri Poincare, the last mathematical universalist. His main known areas of research and influence were in pure mathematics (algebra, number theory, geometry, integral equations and analysis, logic and foundations), but he was also known to have some interest in physical topics. The latter, however, was traditionally conceived as comprising only sporadic incursions into a scientific domain which was essentially foreign to his mainstream of activity and in which he only made scattered, if important, contributions.

Based on an extensive use of mainly unpublished archival sources, the present book presents a totally fresh and comprehensive picture of Hilbert s intense, original, well-informed, and highly influential involvement with physics, that spanned his entire career and that constituted a truly main focus of interest in his scientific horizon. His program for axiomatizing physical theories provides the connecting link with his research in more purely mathematical fields, especially geometry, and a unifying point of view from which to understand his physical activities in general. In particular, the now famous dialogue and interaction between Hilbert and Einstein, leading to the formulation in 1915 of the generally covariant field-equations of gravitation, is adequately explored here within the natural context of Hilbert s overall scientific world-view.

This book will be of interest to historians of physics and of mathematics, to historically-minded physicists and mathematicians, and to philosophers of science."

In 1690, Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695) published Traite de la Lumiere, containing his renowned wave theory of light. It is considered a landmark in seventeenth-century science, for the way Huygens mathematized the corpuscular nature of light and his probabilistic conception of natural knowledge. This book discusses the development of Huygens' wave theory, reconstructing the winding road that eventually led to Traite de la Lumiere. For the first time, the full range of manuscript sources is taken into account. In addition, the development of Huygens' thinking on the nature of light is put in the context of his optics as a whole, which was dominated by his lifelong pursuit of theoretical and practical dioptrics. In so doing, this book offers the first account of the development of Huygens' mathematical analysis of lenses and telescopes and its significance for the origin of the wave theory of light. As Huygens applied his mathematical proficiency to practical issues pertaining to telescopes - including trying to design a perfect telescope by means of mathematical theory - his dioptrics is significant for our understanding of seventeenth-century relations between theory and practice. With this full account of Huygens' optics, this book sheds new light on the history of seventeenth-century optics and the rise of the new mathematical sciences, as well as Huygens' oeuvre as a whole. Students of the history of optics, of early mathematical physics, and the Scientific Revolution, will find this book enlightening."

Bruno de Finetti (1906-1985) is the founder of the subjective interpretation of probability, together with the British philosopher Frank Plumpton Ramsey. His related notion of "exchangeability" revolutionized the statistical methodology. This book (based on a course held in 1979) explains in a language accessible also to non-mathematicians the fundamental tenets and implications of subjectivism, according to which the probability of any well specified fact F refers to the degree of belief actually held by someone, on the ground of her whole knowledge, on the truth of the assertion that F obtains.

The articles in this volume have been first presented during an international Conference organised by the Greek Society for the History of Science and Technology in June 1990 at Corfu. The Society was founded in 1989 and planned to hold a series of meetings to impress upon an audience comprised mainly by Greek students and scholars, the point that history of science is an autonomous discipline with its own plurality of approaches developed over the years as a result of long discussions and disputes within the community of historians of science. The Conference took place at a time when more and more people came to realise that the future of the Greek Universities and Research Centres depends not only on the progress of the institutional reforms, but also very crucially on the establishment of new and modern subject areas. Though there have been significant steps towards such a direction in the physical sciences, mathematics and engineering, the situation in the so-called humanities has been, at best, confusing. Political expediencies of the post war years and ideological commitments to a glorious, yet very distant past, paralysed the development of the humanities and constrained them within a framework which could not allow much more than a philological approach.

Mathematics has stood as a bridge between the Humanities and the Sciences since the days of classical antiquity. For Plato, mathematics was evidence of Being in the midst of Becoming, garden variety evidence apparent even to small children and the unphilosophical, and therefore of the highest educational significance. In the great central similes of The Republic it is the touchstone ofintelligibility for discourse, and in the Timaeus it provides in an oddly literal sense the framework of nature, insuring the intelligibility ofthe material world. For Descartes, mathematical ideas had a clarity and distinctness akin to the idea of God, as the fifth of the Meditations makes especially clear. Cartesian mathematicals are constructions as well as objects envisioned by the soul; in the Principles, the work ofthe physicist who provides a quantified account ofthe machines of nature hovers between description and constitution. For Kant, mathematics reveals the possibility of universal and necessary knowledge that is neither the logical unpacking ofconcepts nor the record of perceptual experience. In the Critique ofPure Reason, mathematics is one of the transcendental instruments the human mind uses to apprehend nature, and by apprehending to construct it under the universal and necessary lawsofNewtonian mechanics.

This biography attempts to shed light on all facets of Zermelo's life and achievements. Personal and scientific aspects are kept separate as far as coherence allows, in order to enable the reader to follow the one or the other of these threads. The presentation of his work explores motivations, aims, acceptance, and influence. Selected proofs and information gleaned from unpublished notes and letters add to the analysis.

Even though mathematics and physics have been related for centuries and this relation appears to be unproblematic, there are many questions still open: Is mathematics really necessary for physics, or could physics exist without mathematics? Should we think physically and then add the mathematics apt to formalise our physical intuition, or should we think mathematically and then interpret physically the obtained results? Do we get mathematical objects by abstraction from real objects, or vice versa? Why is mathematics effective into physics?

These are all relevant questions, whose answers are necessary to fully understand the status of physics, particularly of contemporary physics.

The aim of this book is to offer plausible answers to such questions through both historical analyses of relevant cases, and philosophical analyses of the relations between mathematics and physics.

This account of the History of General Topology has grown out of the special session on this topic at the American Mathematical Soeiety meeting in San Antonio, Texas, 1993. It was there that the idea grew to publish a book on the historical development of General Topology. Moreover it was feit that it was important to undertake this project while topologists who knew some of the early researchers were still active. Since the first paper by Frechet, "Generalisation d'un theoreme de Weier- strass", C.R.Acad. Sei. 139, 1904, 848-849, and Hausdorff's c1assic book, "Grundzuge der Mengenlehre", Leipzig, 1914, there have been numerous de- velopments in a multitude of directions and there have been many interactions with a great number of other mathematical fields. We have tried to cover as many of these as possible. Most contributions concern either individual topologists, speeific schools, speeific periods, speeific topics or a combination of these.

From a Geometrical Point of View explores historical and philosophical aspects of category theory, trying therewith to expose its significance in the mathematical landscape. The main thesis is that Klein's Erlangen program in geometry is in fact a particular instance of a general and broad phenomenon revealed by category theory. The volume starts with Eilenberg and Mac Lane's work in the early 1940's and follows the major developments of the theory from this perspective. Particular attention is paid to the philosophical elements involved in this development. The book ends with a presentation of categorical logic, some of its results and its significance in the foundations of mathematics.

From a Geometrical Point of View aims to provide its readers with a conceptual perspective on category theory and categorical logic, in order to gain insight into their role and nature in contemporary mathematics. It should be of interest to mathematicians, logicians, philosophers of mathematics and science in general, historians of contemporary mathematics, physicists and computer scientists.

In the 20th century philosophy of mathematics has to a great extent been dominated by views developed during the so-called foundational crisis in the beginning of that century. These views have primarily focused on questions pertaining to the logical structure of mathematics and questions regarding the justi?cation and consistency of mathematics. Paradigmatic in this - spect is Hilbert's program which inherits from Frege and Russell the project to formalize all areas of ordinary mathematics and then adds the requi- ment of a proof, by epistemically privileged means (?nitistic reasoning), of the consistency of such formalized theories. While interest in modi?ed v- sions of the original foundational programs is still thriving, in the second part of the twentieth century several philosophers and historians of mat- matics have questioned whether such foundational programs could exhaust the realm of important philosophical problems to be raised about the nature of mathematics. Some have done so in open confrontation (and hostility) to the logically based analysis of mathematics which characterized the cl- sical foundational programs, while others (and many of the contributors to this book belong to this tradition) have only called for an extension of the range of questions and problems that should be raised in connection with an understanding of mathematics. The focus has turned thus to a consideration of what mathematicians are actually doing when they produce mathematics. Questions concerning concept-formation, understanding, heuristics, changes instyle of reasoning, the role of analogies and diagrams etc.

This book presents important works by the Scottish mathematician Colin MacLaurin (1698-1746), translated in English for the first time. It includes three of the mathematician 's less known and often hard to obtain works. A general introduction puts the works in context and gives an outline of MacLaurin's career. Each translation is also accompanied by an introduction and analyzed both in modern terms and from a historical point of view.

The infinite! No other question has ever moved so profoundly the spirit of man; no other idea has so fruitfully stimulated his intellect; yet no other concept stands in greater need of clarification than that of the infinite. . . - David Hilbert (1862-1943) Infinity is a fathomless gulf, There is a story attributed to David Hilbert, the preeminent mathe into which all things matician whose quotation appears above. A man walked into a vanish. hotel late one night and asked for a room. "Sorry, we don't have o Marcus Aurelius (121- 180), Roman Emperor any more vacancies," replied the owner, "but let's see, perhaps and philosopher I can find you a room after alL" Leaving his desk, the owner reluctantly awakened his guests and asked them to change their rooms: the occupant of room #1 would move to room #2, the occupant of room #2 would move to room #3, and so on until each occupant had moved one room over. To the utter astonish ment of our latecomer, room #1 suddenly became vacated, and he happily moved in and settled down for the night. But a numbing thought kept him from sleep: How could it be that by merely moving the occupants from one room to another, the first room had become vacated? (Remember, all of the rooms were occupied when he arrived.

The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) is currently implementing the greatest change ever in the world's system of weights and measures -- it is redefining the kilogram, the final artefact standard, and reorganizing the system of international units. This book tells the inside story of what led to these changes, from the events surrounding the founding of the BIPM in 1875 -- a landmark in the history of international cooperation -- to the present. It traces not only the evolution of the science, but also the story of the key individuals and events.
The BIPM was the first international scientific laboratory. Founded in 1875 by the Metre Convention, its original tasks were to conserve the new international standards of the metre and the kilogram, to carry out calibrations for Member States and undertake research to advance measurement science. The book is based on the substantial archive of the BIPM which, from the very beginning, recounts the many discussions and arguments first as to whether and how such an institute should be created and in due course, how over the next one hundred and thirty years it should develop. Despite many national and personal rivalries, the institute actually created was admirably suited to its declared tasks. In the years and decades that followed, the scientific work of the small group of men who made up its first staff was of a very high order. One of the early Directors received the Nobel Prize for physics in 1920 for his discovery of invar. The international governing Board of the institute, the International Committee of Weights and Measures, has guided the institute from one charged with the conservation of the prototype artefacts to one now at the centre of world metrology and preparing for the redefinition of the last remaining artifact, the kilogram, in terms of a fixed value for one of the fundamental constants of physics, the Planck constant

When, after the agreeable fatigues of solicitation, Mrs Millamant set out a long bill of conditions subject to which she might by degrees dwindle into a wife, Mirabell offered in return the condition that he might not thereby be beyond measure enlarged into a husband. With age and experience in research come the twin dangers of dwindling into a philosopher of science while being enlarged into a dotard. The philosophy of science, I believe, should not be the preserve of senile scientists and of teachers of philosophy who have themselves never so much as understood the contents of a textbook of theoretical physics, let alone done a bit of mathematical research or even enjoyed the confidence of a creating scientist. On the latter count I run no risk: Any reader will see that I am untrained (though not altogether unread) in classroom philosophy. Of no ignorance of mine do I boast, indeed I regret it, but neither do I find this one ignorance fatal here, for few indeed of the great philosophers to explicate whose works hodiernal professors of phil osophy destroy forests of pulp were themselves so broadly and specially trained as are their scholiasts. In attempt to palliate the former count I have chosen to collect works written over the past thirty years, some of them not published before, and I include only a few very recent essays."