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Books > Science & Mathematics > Mathematics > History of mathematics
This publication was made possible through a bequest from my beloved late wife. United together in this present collection are those works by the author which have not previously appeared in book form. The following are excepted: Vorlesungen fiber Differential und Integralrechnung (Lectures on Differential and Integral Calculus) Vols 1-3, Birkhauser Verlag, Basel (1965-1968); Aufgabensammlung zur Infinitesimalrechnung (Exercises in Infinitesimal Calculus) Vols 1, 2a, 2b, and 3, Birkhauser Verlag, Basel (1967-1977); two issues from Memorial des Sciences on Conformal Mapping (written together with C. Gattegno), Gauthier-Villars, Paris (1949); Solution of Equations in Euclidean and Banach Spaces, Academic Press, New York (1973); and Stu- dien fiber den Schottkyschen Satz (Studies on Schottky'S Theorem), Wepf & Co., Basel (1931). Where corrections have had to be implemented in the text of certain papers, references to these are made at the conclusion of each paper. In the few instances where this system does not, for technical reasons, seem appropriate, an asterisk in the page margin indicates wherever a correction is necessary and this is then given at the end of the paper. (There is one exception: the correc- tions to the paper on page 561 are presented on page 722. The works are published in 6 volumes and are arranged under 16 topic headings. Within each heading, the papers are ordered chronologically according to the date of original publication.
Louis Couturat (1868-1914) was an outstanding intellectual of the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century. He is known for his work in the philosophy of mathematics, for his critical and editorial work on Leibniz, for his attempt to popularise modern logic in France, for his commitment to an international auxiliary language, as well as for his extended correspondence with scholars and mathematicians from Great Britain, the United States, Italy, and Germany. From his correspondence we know of four unpublished manuscripts on logic and its history, which were largely complete and some of which must have been of considerable size. We publish here for the ?rst time in a critical edition the only one of these manuscripts that has been rediscovered: the Traite de Logique algorithmique, presumably written in the years 1899-1901. It is a highly interesting document of the academic reception and popularisation of symbolic logic in France. It provides evidence of the discussions and controversies which accompanied the creation of logic as a new branch of science. At the same time it completes the picture of Couturat's work, which has been opened up to systematic study by the publication of important parts of his correspondence during the last decade. We append the article on Symbolic Logic of 1902 which Couturat wrote in collaboration with Christine Ladd- Franklin for Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology."
My attention was first drawn to Chuquet' s mathematical manuscript whilst undertaking the necessary research for the preparation of the Open University's History of Mathematics course, presented initially in 1974. It was whilst editing the English edition of Math~matiques et Math~maticiens (P. Dedron and J. Itard, trans. J. Field) that I noted that it was stated that "the whole manuscript *** comprises 324 folios, i. e. 648 pages", and that, in addition to the Triparty (by which the work is generally known) the manuscript includes sections on problems, on the application of algebraic methods to geometry, and on conunercial
I ?nd it impossible to write a preface to this work, without discovering a little of the enthusiasm which I have contracted from an attention to it. Joseph Priestley. The History and Present State of Electricity. It is generally considered bad form in writing, unless on matters autob- graphic, tomakeunbridleduseoftheperpendicularpronoun. Thereaderof the present book, however, may well wonder why one would want to study 1 the life and works of Thomas Bayes, this strangely neglected topic, and it is only by a reluctant use of the ?rst person singular on the part of the author that this legitimate question can be answered. It was in the late 1960s that my interest in various aspects of subjective probability was awakened by some of the papers of I. J. ( Jack ) Good, and this was followed by the reading of works such as Harold Je?reys s Theory of Probability. In many of these the (apparently simple) result known as Bayes s Theorem played a pivotal r ole, and it struck me that it might be interesting to ?nd out a bit more about Thomas Bayes himself. In trying to satisfy this curiosity in spasmodic periods over many years I discovered that little information seemed to be available. Writings by John D."
This book, in three parts, describes three phases in the development of the modern theory and calculation of the Moon's motion. Part I explains the crisis in lunar theory in the 1870s that led G.W. Hill to lay a new foundation for an analytic solution, a preliminary orbit he called the "variational curve." Part II is devoted to E.W. Brown's completion of the new theory as a series of successive perturbations of Hill's variational curve. Part III describes the revolutionary developments in time-measurement and the determination of Earth-Moon and Earth-planet distances that led to the replacement of the Hill-Brown theory in 1984.
Prior to the advent of computers, no mathematician, physicist or engineer could do without a volume of tables of logarithmic and trigonometric functions. These tables made possible certain calculations which would otherwise be impossible. Unfortunately, carelessness and lazy plagiarism meant that the tables often contained serious errors. Those prepared by Charles Hutton (1737 1823) were notable for their reliability and remained the standard for a century. Hutton had risen, by mathematical ability, hard work and some luck, from humble beginnings to become a professor of mathematics at the Royal Military Academy. His mathematical work was distinguished by utility rather than originality, but his contributions to the teaching of the subject were substantial. This seventh edition was published in 1858 with additional material by Olinthus Gregory (1774 1841). The preliminary matter will be of interest to any modern-day reader who wishes to know how calculation was done before the electronic computer.
Motivated by the importance of the Campbell, Baker, Hausdorff, Dynkin Theorem in many different branches of Mathematics and Physics (Lie group-Lie algebra theory, linear PDEs, Quantum and Statistical Mechanics, Numerical Analysis, Theoretical Physics, Control Theory, sub-Riemannian Geometry), this monograph is intended to: fully enable readers (graduates or specialists, mathematicians, physicists or applied scientists, acquainted with Algebra or not) to understand and apply the statements and numerous corollaries of the main result, provide a wide spectrum of proofs from the modern literature, comparing different techniques and furnishing a unifying point of view and notation, provide a thorough historical background of the results, together with unknown facts about the effective early contributions by Schur, Poincare, Pascal, Campbell, Baker, Hausdorff and Dynkin, give an outlook on the applications, especially in Differential Geometry (Lie group theory) and Analysis (PDEs of subelliptic type) andquickly enable the reader, through a description of the state-of-art and open problems, to understand the modern literature concerning a theorem which, though having its roots in the beginning of the20th century, has not ceased to provide new problems and applications. The book assumes some undergraduate-level knowledge of algebra and analysis, but apart from that is self-contained. Part II of the monograph is devoted to the proofs of the algebraic background. The monograph may therefore provide a tool for beginners in Algebra."
This volume makes an important contribution toward a nuanced appreciation of the Jesuits' interaction with "modernity," and a greater recognition of their contribution to the mathematization of natural philosophy and experimental science. The six essays provide a cross-section of the complex Jesuit encounter with the mathematical sciences during the 17th century.
The pioneering work of French mathematician Pierre de Fermat has attracted the attention of mathematicians for over 350 years. This book was written in honor of the 400th anniversary of his birth, providing readers with an overview of the many properties of Fermat numbers and demonstrating their applications in areas such as number theory, probability theory, geometry, and signal processing. This book introduces a general mathematical audience to basic mathematical ideas and algebraic methods connected with the Fermat numbers.
For textual studies relating to the ancient mathematical corpus the efforts by the Danish philologist, 1. L. Heiberg (1854-1928), are especially significant. Beginning with his doctoral dissertation, Quaestiones Archimedeae (Copen hagen, 1879), Heiberg produced an astonishing series of editions and critical studies that remain the foundation of scholarship on Greek mathematical 4 science. For comprehensiveness and accuracy, his editions are exemplary. In his textual studies, as also in the prolegomena to his editions, he carefully described the extant evidence, organized the manuscripts into stemmata, and drew out the implications for the state of the text. 5 With regard to his Archimedean work, Heiberg sometimes betrayed signs of the philologist's occupational disease - the tendency to rewrite a text deemed on subjective grounds to be unworthy. 6 But he did so less often than his prominent 7 contemporaries, and not as to detract appreciably from the value of his editions. In examining textual questions bearing on the Archimedean corpus, he attempted to exploit as much as possible evidence from the ancient commentators, and in some instances from the medieval translations. It is here that opportunities abound for new work, extending, and in some instances superseding, Heiberg's findings. For at his time the availability of the medieval materials was limited. In recent years Marshall Clagett has completed a mammoth critical edition of the medieval Latin tradition of Archimedes,8 while the bibliographical instruments for the Arabic tradition are in good order thanks to the work of Fuat Sezgin."
Kurt Godel, together with Bertrand Russell, is the most important name in logic, and in the foundations and philosophy of mathematics of this century. However, unlike Russel, Godel the mathematician published very little apart from his well-known writings in logic, metamathematics and set theory. Fortunately, Godel the philosopher, who devoted more years of his life to philosophy than to technical investigation, wrote hundreds of pages on the philosophy of mathematics, as well as on other fields of philosophy. It was only possible to learn more about his philosophical works after the opening of his literary estate at Princeton a decade ago. The goal of this book is to make available to the scholarly public solid reconstructions and editions of two of the most important essays which Godel wrote on the philosophy of mathematics. The book is divided into two parts. The first provides the reader with an incisive historico-philosophical introduction to Godel's technical results and philosophical ideas. Written by the Editor, this introductory apparatus is not only devoted to the manuscripts themselves but also to the philosophical context in which they were written. The second contains two of Godel's most important and fascinating unpublished essays: 1) the Gibbs Lecture ("Some basic theorems on the foundations of mathematics and their philosophical implications," 1951); and 2) two of the six versions of the essay which Godel wrote for the Carnap volume of the Schilpp series The Library of Living Philosophers ("Is mathematics syntax of language?," 1953-1959)."
A number of years ago, Harriet Sheridan, then Dean of Brown University, organized a series oflectures in which individual faculty members described how it came about that they entered their various fields. I was invited to participate in this series and found in the invitation an opportunity to recall events going back to my early teens. The lecture was well received and its reception encouraged me to work up an expanded version. My manuscript lay dormant all these years. In the meanwhile, sufficiently many other mathematical experiences and encounters accumulated to make this little book. My 1981 lecture is the basis of the first piece: "Napoleon's Theorem. " Although there is a connection between the first piece and the second, the four pieces here are essentially independent. The sec ond piece, "Carpenter and the Napoleon Ascription," has as its object a full description of a certain type of scholar-storyteller (of whom I have known and admired several). It is a pastiche, contain ing a salad bar selection blended together by my own imagination. This piece purports, as a secondary goal, to present a solution to a certain unsolved historical problem raised in the first piece. The third piece, "The Man Who Began His Lectures with 'Namely'," is a short reminiscence of Stefan Bergman, one of my teachers of graduate mathematics. Bergman, a remarkable person ality, was born in Poland and came to the United States in 1939."
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."
Entre Meeanique et Arehiteeture: e'est-a-dire, entre les proeedes teehniques qui, depuis des temps immemoriaux eonforment l'art et la scienee de la eonstruetion au developpement de la scienee physique et mathematique la plus generale et, peut-etre, la plus abstraite, subalternata tanturn geometriae et philosophiae naturalis, eomme le disait Tartaglia, bien que liee aux faits les plus farniliers: la statique et la meeanique des mareriaux et des struetures. Le theme qui nous eoneeme est done la relation entre la technique et la scienee dans son exemple le plus important, je crois, du point de vue historiographique mais aussi epistemologique: a savoir, la relation entre le savoir faire, qui se eonforme a la norme, en respeetant une determination et une eongruenee parfaites avee son objectif, et la theorie, qui eonfirme la norme et temoigne la neeessite de la determiner eongrfiment avec les lois de la nature. Avee une extreme perspieaeite, quelque peu offusquee par une frivolite erudite, l' Abbe Franeeseo Maria Franeesehinis, mathematieien et adepte de la philosophie des lurnieres, se peneha sur la question dans un bref traite qu'il publia a Padoue en 1808 sous 1 le titre Des Mathematiques appliquees , soutenant la nouvelle tendanee didaetique introduite a l'Universite de Padoue par l'ephemere Regne d'Italie. Simulant un eonflit entre plusieurs auteurs, Franeesehinis exposait une premiere these dans un Discours inaugural qu'il reeita peut-etre reellement en 1807, lorsqu'il devint titulaire de la Chaire de Mathematiques appliquees.
The geometric calculus, in general, consists in a system of operations on geometric entities, and their consequences, analogous to those that algebra has on the num bers. It permits the expression in formulas of the results of geometric constructions, the representation with equations of propositions of geometry, and the substitution of a transformation of equations for a verbal argument. The geometric calculus exhibits analogies with analytic geometry; but it differs from it in that, whereas in analytic geometry the calculations are made on the numbers that determine the geometric entities, in this new science the calculations are made on the geometric entities themselves. A first attempt at a geometric calculus was due to the great mind of Leibniz (1679);1 in the present century there were proposed and developed various methods of calculation having practical utility, among which deserving special mention are 2 the barycentric calculus of Mobius (1827), that of the equipollences of Bellavitis (1832),3 the quaternions of Hamilton (1853),4 and the applications to geometry 5 of the Ausdehnungslehre of Hermann Grassmann (1844). Of these various methods, the last cited to a great extent incorporates the others and is superior in its powers of calculation and in the simplicity of its formulas. But the excessively lofty and abstruse contents of the Ausdehnungslehre impeded the diffusion of that science; and thus even its applications to geometry are still very little appreciated by mathematicians."
Ernst Specker has made decisive contributions towards shaping direc tions in topology, algebra, mathematical logic, combinatorics and algorith mic over the last 40 years. We have derived great pleasure from marking his seventieth birthday by editing the majority of his scientific publications, and thus making his work available in a unified form to the mathematical community. In order to convey an idea of the richness of his personality, we have also included one of his sermons. Of course, the publication of these Selecta can pay tribute only to the writings of Ernst Specker. It cannot adequately express his originality and wisdom as a person nor the fascination he exercises over his students, colleagues and friends. We can do no better than to quote from Hao Wang in the 'Festschrift' Logic and Algorithmic I: Specker was ill for an extended period before completing his formal education. He had the leisure to think over many things. This experi ence may have helped cultivating his superiority as a person. In terms of traditional Chinese categories, I would say there is a taoist trait in him in the sense of being more detached, less competitive, and more under standing. I believe he has a better sense of what is important in life and arranges his life better than most logicians. We are grateful to Birkhauser Verlag for the production of this Selecta volume. Our special thanks go to Jonas Meon for sharing with us his intimate knowledge of his friend Ernst Specker."
In Western Civilization Mathematics and Music have a long and interesting history in common, with several interactions, traditionally associated with the name of Pythagoras but also with a significant number of other mathematicians, like Leibniz, for instance. Mathematical models can be found for almost all levels of musical activities from composition to sound production by traditional instruments or by digital means. Modern music theory has been incorporating more and more mathematical content during the last decades. This book offers a journey into recent work relating music and mathematics. It contains a large variety of articles, covering the historical aspects, the influence of logic and mathematical thought in composition, perception and understanding of music and the computational aspects of musical sound processing. The authors illustrate the rich and deep interactions that exist between Mathematics and Music.
The purpose of presenting this book to the scholarly world is twofold. In the first place, I wish to provide for the English reader a translation of the earliest extant Arabic work of Hindi arithmetic. It shows this system at its earliest stages and the first steps in its development, a subject not yet well known except for readers of some Arabic publications by the present writer. This book is therefore of particular importance for students of the history of mathematical techniques. The medieval author, AI-UqHdisI, was, it seems, not noticed by bibliographers; neither was his work, which lay hardly noticed by modern scholars until 1960 when I happened to see a microfilm copy of it in the Institute of Arabic Manu scripts in Cairo. A steady labour immediately followed to make a comparative study of the text together with over twenty other texts, some of them not yet known to scholars. This pursuit resulted in (i) a doctoral degree awarded to me in 1966 by the University of Khartoum, (ii) the publication of several texts in Arabic including the text here translated, and (iii) the publication of several articles in Arabic and English on the history of arithmetic in the Middle Ages. The second purpose of this book is to make the main results of my study available to the English reader."
The calculus of variations is a subject whose beginning can be precisely dated. It might be said to begin at the moment that Euler coined the name calculus of variations but this is, of course, not the true moment of inception of the subject. It would not have been unreasonable if I had gone back to the set of isoperimetric problems considered by Greek mathemati cians such as Zenodorus (c. 200 B. C. ) and preserved by Pappus (c. 300 A. D. ). I have not done this since these problems were solved by geometric means. Instead I have arbitrarily chosen to begin with Fermat's elegant principle of least time. He used this principle in 1662 to show how a light ray was refracted at the interface between two optical media of different densities. This analysis of Fermat seems to me especially appropriate as a starting point: He used the methods of the calculus to minimize the time of passage cif a light ray through the two media, and his method was adapted by John Bernoulli to solve the brachystochrone problem. There have been several other histories of the subject, but they are now hopelessly archaic. One by Robert Woodhouse appeared in 1810 and another by Isaac Todhunter in 1861."
The question of when and how the basic concepts that characterize modern science arose in Western Europe has long been central to the history of science. This book examines the transition from Renaissance engineering and philosophy of nature to classical mechanics oriented on the central concept of velocity. For this new edition, the authors include a new discussion of the doctrine of proportions, an analysis of the role of traditional statics in the construction of Descartes' impact rules, and go deeper into the debate between Descartes and Hobbes on the explanation of refraction. They also provide significant new material on the early development of Galileo's work on mechanics and the law of fall.
by Ivor Grattan-Guinness Until twenty years ago the outline history of logicism was well known. Frege had had the important ideas, until he was eclipsed by Wittgenstein. Russell was important in publicising the former and tutoring the latter, and also for working with Moore in the conversion of British philosophy from neo-Hegelianism to the new analytic tradition in the 1900s, but his own work on logic and especially logicism was very muddled. Around that time Russell, who was still alive, sold his manuscripts to McMaster University in Canada, and interest in his achievements in logic began to develop, especially after his death in 1970. Scholars found thousands of folios of unpublished holograph awaiting their attention, and also hundreds of pertinent letters (both in the Russell Archives and elsewhere in certain recipients' collections). Various facets of his work came to light for the first time, and others -which could have been gleaned from carefully reading of the published sources- gained new publicity from the evidence revealed in manuscripts. Even the technical passage work, which constitutes the unread majority of the Principia mathematica (1910-13) of Russell and Whitehead, began to receive a little respectful scrutiny. It turned out that Russell had done several pioneering things. While indeed often incoherent in reference and content, they comprised major forays into the new mathematical logic, of which he turned out to be a major founder: some are even of interest to modem studies.
A flexagon is a motion structure that has the appearance of a ring of hinged polygons. It can be flexed to display different pairs of faces, usually in cyclic order. Flexagons can be appreciated as toys or puzzles, as a recreational mathematics topic, and as the subject of serious mathematical study. Workable paper models of flexagons are easy to make and entertaining to manipulate. The mathematics of flexagons is complex, and how a flexagon works is not immediately obvious on examination of a paper model. Recent geometric analysis, included in the book, has improved theoretical understanding of flexagons, especially relationships between different types. This profusely illustrated book is arranged in a logical order appropriate for a textbook on the geometry of flexagons. It is written so that it can be enjoyed at both the recreational mathematics level, and at the serious mathematics level. The only prerequisite is some knowledge of elementary geometry, including properties of polygons. A feature of the book is a compendium of over 100 nets for making paper models of some of the more interesting flexagons, chosen to complement the text. These are accurately drawn and reproduced at half full size. Many of the nets have not previously been published. Instructions for assembling and manipulating the flexagons are included.
Procreare iucundum, sed parturire molestum. (Gauss, sec. Eisenstein) The plan of this book was first conceived eight years ago. The manuscript developed slowly through several versions until it attained its present form in 1979. It would be inappropriate to list the names of all the friends and advisors with whom I discussed my various drafts but I should like to mention the name of Mr. Gary Cornell who, besides discussing with me numerous details of the manuscript, revised it stylistically. There is much interest among mathematicians to know more about Gauss's life, and the generous help I received has certainly more to do with this than with any individual, positive or negative, aspect of my manuscript. Any mistakes, errors of judgement, or other inadequacies are, of course, the author's responsi bility. The most incisive and, in a way, easiest decisions I had to make were those of personal taste in the choice and treatment of topics. Much had to be omitted or could only be discussed in a cursory way." |
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