Abraham Lincoln’s Cyphering Book and Ten other Extraordinary Cyphering Books
Abraham Lincoln’s Cyphering Book and Ten other Extraordinary Cyphering Books

Author: Nerida F. Ellerton

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2014-03-26

Total Pages: 383

ISBN-13: 3319025023

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This well-illustrated book provides strong qualitative and comparative support for the main arguments developed by Nerida Ellerton and Ken Clements in their groundbreaking Rewriting this History of School Mathematics in North America 1607–1861: The Central Role of Cyphering Books. Eleven extraordinary handwritten school mathematics manuscripts are carefully analyzed—six were prepared entirely in Great Britain, four entirely in North America, and 1 partly in Great Britain and partly in North America. The earliest of the 11 cyphering books was prepared around 1630, and the latest in 1835. Seven of the manuscripts were arithmetic cyphering books; three were navigation cyphering books, and one was a mensuration/surveying manuscript. One of the cyphering books examined in this book was prepared, over the period 1819–1826, by a young Abraham Lincoln, when he was attending small one-teacher schools in remote Spencer County, Indiana. Chapter 6 in this book provides the first detailed analysis of young Abraham’s cyphering book—which is easily the oldest surviving Lincoln manuscript. Another cyphering book, this one prepared by William Beattie in 1835, could have been prepared as a special gift for the King of England. The analyses make clear the extent of the control which the cyphering tradition had over school mathematics in North America and Great Britain between 1630 and 1840. In their final chapter Ellerton and Clements identify six lessons from their research into the cyphering tradition which relate to present-day circumstances surrounding school mathematics. These lessons are concerned with sharp differences between intended, implemented and attained curricula, the remarkable value that many students placed upon their cyphering books, the ethnomathematical circumstances which surrounded the preparations of the extraordinary cyphering books, and qualitative differences between British and North American school mathematics.

Toward Mathematics for All
Toward Mathematics for All

Author: Nerida Ellerton

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-06-27

Total Pages: 462

ISBN-13: 3030857247

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This book presents a history of mathematic between 1607 and 1865 in that part of mainland North America which is north of Mexico but excludes the present-day Canada and Alaska. Unlike most other histories of mathematics now available, the emphasis is on the gradual emergence of "mathematics for all" programs and associated changes in thinking which drove this emergence. The book takes account of changing ideas about intended, implemented and attained mathematics curricula for learners of all ages. It also pays attention to the mathematics itself, and to how it was taught and learned.

Samuel Pepys, Isaac Newton, James Hodgson, and the Beginnings of Secondary School Mathematics
Samuel Pepys, Isaac Newton, James Hodgson, and the Beginnings of Secondary School Mathematics

Author: Nerida F. Ellerton

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-03-02

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 3319466577

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This book tells one of the greatest stories in the history of school mathematics. Two of the names in the title—Samuel Pepys and Isaac Newton—need no introduction, and this book draws attention to their special contributions to the history of school mathematics. According to Ellerton and Clements, during the last quarter of the seventeenth century Pepys and Newton were key players in defining what school mathematics beyond arithmetic and elementary geometry might look like. The scene at which most of the action occurred was Christ’s Hospital, which was a school, ostensibly for the poor, in central London. The Royal Mathematical School (RMS) was established at Christ’s Hospital in 1673. It was the less well-known James Hodgson, a fine mathematician and RMS master between 1709 and 1755, who demonstrated that topics such as logarithms, plane and spherical trigonometry, and the application of these to navigation, might systematically and successfully be taught to 12- to 16-year-old school children. From a wider history-of-school-education perspective, this book tells how the world’s first secondary-school mathematics program was created and how, slowly but surely, what was being achieved at RMS began to influence school mathematics in other parts of Great Britain, Europe, and America. The book has been written from the perspective of the history of school mathematics. Ellerton and Clements’s analyses of pertinent literature and of archival data, and their interpretations of those analyses, have led them to conclude that RMS was the first major school in the world to teach mathematics-beyond-arithmetic, on a systematic basis, to students aged between 12 and 16. Throughout the book, Ellerton and Clements examine issues through the lens of a lag-time theoretical perspective. From a historiographical perspective, this book emphasizes how the history of RMS can be portrayed in very different ways, depending on the vantage point from which the history is written. The authors write from the vantage point of international developments in school mathematics education and, therefore, their history of RMS differs from all other histories of RMS, most of which were written from the perspective of the history of Christ’s Hospital.

Thomas Jefferson and his Decimals 1775–1810: Neglected Years in the History of U.S. School Mathematics
Thomas Jefferson and his Decimals 1775–1810: Neglected Years in the History of U.S. School Mathematics

Author: M.A. (Ken) Clements

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2014-11-19

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 3319025058

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This well-illustrated book, by two established historians of school mathematics, documents Thomas Jefferson’s quest, after 1775, to introduce a form of decimal currency to the fledgling United States of America. The book describes a remarkable study showing how the United States’ decision to adopt a fully decimalized, carefully conceived national currency ultimately had a profound effect on U.S. school mathematics curricula. The book shows, by analyzing a large set of arithmetic textbooks and an even larger set of handwritten cyphering books, that although most eighteenth- and nineteenth-century authors of arithmetic textbooks included sections on vulgar and decimal fractions, most school students who prepared cyphering books did not study either vulgar or decimal fractions. In other words, author-intended school arithmetic curricula were not matched by teacher-implemented school arithmetic curricula. Amazingly, that state of affairs continued even after the U.S. Mint began minting dollars, cents and dimes in the 1790s. In U.S. schools between 1775 and 1810 it was often the case that Federal money was studied but decimal fractions were not. That gradually changed during the first century of the formal existence of the United States of America. By contrast, Chapter 6 reports a comparative analysis of data showing that in Great Britain only a minority of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century school students studied decimal fractions. Clements and Ellerton argue that Jefferson’s success in establishing a system of decimalized Federal money had educationally significant effects on implemented school arithmetic curricula in the United States of America. The lens through which Clements and Ellerton have analyzed their large data sets has been the lag-time theoretical position which they have developed. That theory posits that the time between when an important mathematical “discovery” is made (or a concept is “created”) and when that discovery (or concept) becomes an important part of school mathematics is dependent on mathematical, social, political and economic factors. Thus, lag time varies from region to region, and from nation to nation. Clements and Ellerton are the first to identify the years after 1775 as the dawn of a new day in U.S. school mathematics—traditionally, historians have argued that nothing in U.S. school mathematics was worthy of serious study until the 1820s. This book emphasizes the importance of the acceptance of decimal currency so far as school mathematics is concerned. It also draws attention to the consequences for school mathematics of the conscious decision of the U.S. Congress not to proceed with Thomas Jefferson’s grand scheme for a system of decimalized weights and measures.

Six Encounters with Lincoln
Six Encounters with Lincoln

Author: Elizabeth Brown Pryor

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2018-02-06

Total Pages: 498

ISBN-13: 014311123X

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Winner of the Barondess/Lincoln Award from The Civil War Round Table of New York “Fascinating reading. . .this book eerily reflects some of today’s key issues.” – The New York Times Book Review From an award-winning historian, an engrossing look at how Abraham Lincoln grappled with the challenges of leadership in an unruly democracy An awkward first meeting with U.S. Army officers, on the eve of the Civil War. A conversation on the White House portico with a young cavalry sergeant who was a fiercely dedicated abolitionist. A tense exchange on a navy ship with a Confederate editor and businessman. In this eye-opening book, Elizabeth Brown Pryor examines six intriguing, mostly unknown encounters that Abraham Lincoln had with his constituents. Taken together, they reveal his character and opinions in unexpected ways, illustrating his difficulties in managing a republic and creating a presidency. Pryor probes both the political demons that Lincoln battled in his ambitious exercise of power and the demons that arose from the very nature of democracy itself: the clamorous diversity of the populace, with its outspoken demands. She explores the trouble Lincoln sometimes had in communicating and in juggling the multiple concerns that make up being a political leader; how conflicted he was over the problem of emancipation; and the misperceptions Lincoln and the South held about each other. Pryor also provides a fascinating discussion of Lincoln’s fondness for storytelling and how he used his skills as a raconteur to enhance both his personal and political power. Based on scrupulous research that draws on hundreds of eyewitness letters, diaries, and newspaper excerpts, Six Encounters with Lincoln offers a fresh portrait of Lincoln as the beleaguered politician who was not especially popular with the people he needed to govern with, and who had to deal with the many critics, naysayers, and dilemmas he faced without always knowing the right answer. What it shows most clearly is that greatness was not simply laid on Lincoln’s shoulders like a mantle, but was won in fits and starts.

Thomas Lincoln
Thomas Lincoln

Author: Carles H. Coleman

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2015-03-17

Total Pages: 114

ISBN-13: 1491759275

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Thomas Lincoln, born in 1778, conquered the wilderness, built cabins and furniture, and supported his family as a farmer and carpenter. But his most important job was helping to raise Abraham Lincoln, who would become the sixteenth president of the United States of America. His story reveals what the American experience was like for those who settled the West leading up to the nations pre-Civil War period. He set an example of honesty, morality, hard work, diligence, and good humorall traits that were also associated with his son, Abraham, known as Honest Abe. Charles H. Coleman, Ph.D., the former Chair of the Department of History at Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, Illinois, and his daughter, Mary Coleman, explore Thomas Lincolns life in detailstarting with his ancestors in England to his death in 1851. Despite the mythology that grew up around Abraham Lincoln, at the time of his fathers death, the family owned as much if not more than many of their neighbors. Success did not come easy, but Thomas Lincoln established the foundation that allowed his son to become a man who will always be remembered.

Reading Mathematics in Early Modern Europe
Reading Mathematics in Early Modern Europe

Author: Philip Beeley

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-10-20

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 1000207471

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Libraries and archives contain many thousands of early modern mathematical books, of which almost equally many bear readers’ marks, ranging from deliberate annotations and accidental blots to corrections and underlinings. Such evidence provides us with the material and intellectual tools for exploring the nature of mathematical reading and the ways in which mathematics was disseminated and assimilated across different social milieus in the early centuries of print culture. Other evidence is important, too, as the case studies collected in the volume document. Scholarly correspondence can help us understand the motives and difficulties in producing new printed texts, library catalogues can illuminate collection practices, while manuscripts can teach us more about textual traditions. By defining and illuminating the distinctive world of early modern mathematical reading, the volume seeks to close the gap between the history of mathematics as a history of texts and history of mathematics as part of the broader history of human culture.

Research in History and Philosophy of Mathematics
Research in History and Philosophy of Mathematics

Author: Maria Zack

Publisher: Birkhäuser

Published: 2015-11-10

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 3319222589

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This volume contains thirteen papers that were presented at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the Canadian Society for History and Philosophy of Mathematics/La Société Canadienne d’Histoire et de Philosophie des Mathématiques, held on the campus of Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. It contains rigorously reviewed modern scholarship on general topics in the history and philosophy of mathematics, as well as on the meeting’s special topic, Early Scientific Computation. These papers cover subjects such as •Physical tools used by mathematicians in the seventeenth century •The first historical appearance of the game-theoretical concept of mixed-strategy equilibrium •George Washington’s mathematical cyphering books •The development of the Venn diagram •The role of Euler and other mathematicians in the development of algebraic analysis •Arthur Cayley and Alfred Kempe’s influence on Charles Peirce's diagrammatic logic •The influence publishers had on the development of mathematical pedagogy in the nineteenth century •A description of the 1924 International Mathematical Congress held in Toronto, told in the form of a “narrated slide show” Written by leading scholars in the field, these papers will be accessible to not only mathematicians and students of the history and philosophy of mathematics, but also anyone with a general interest in mathematics.

The Palgrave Handbook of Literature and Mathematics
The Palgrave Handbook of Literature and Mathematics

Author: Robert Tubbs

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-12-30

Total Pages: 628

ISBN-13: 3030554783

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This handbook features essays written by both literary scholars and mathematicians that examine multiple facets of the connections between literature and mathematics. These connections range from mathematics and poetic meter to mathematics and modernism to mathematics as literature. Some chapters focus on a single author, such as mathematics and Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, or Charles Dickens, while others consider a mathematical topic common to two or more authors, such as squaring the circle, chaos theory, Newton’s calculus, or stochastic processes. With appeal for scholars and students in literature, mathematics, cultural history, and history of mathematics, this important volume aims to introduce the range, fertility, and complexity of the connections between mathematics, literature, and literary theory. Chapter 1 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via [link.springer.com|http://link.springer.com/].

Media and the Mind
Media and the Mind

Author: Matthew Daniel Eddy

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2023-07-11

Total Pages: 531

ISBN-13: 0226820750

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A beautifully illustrated argument that reveals notebooks as extraordinary paper machines that transformed knowledge on the page and in the mind. We often think of reason as a fixed entity, as a definitive body of facts that do not change over time. But during the Enlightenment, reason also was seen as a process, as a set of skills enacted on a daily basis. How, why, and where were these skills learned? Concentrating on Scottish students living during the long eighteenth century, this book argues that notebooks were paper machines and that notekeeping was a capability-building exercise that enabled young notekeepers to mobilize everyday handwritten and printed forms of material and visual media in a way that empowered them to judge and enact the enlightened principles they encountered in the classroom. Covering a rich selection of material ranging from simple scribbles to intricate watercolor diagrams, the book reinterprets John Locke’s comparison of the mind to a blank piece of paper, the tabula rasa. Although one of the most recognizable metaphors of the British Enlightenment, scholars seldom consider why it was so successful for those who used it. Each chapter uses one core notekeeping skill to reveal the fascinating world of material culture that enabled students in the arts, sciences, and humanities to transform the tabula rasa metaphor into a dynamic cognitive model. Starting in the home, moving to schools, and ending with universities, the book reconstructs the relationship between media and the mind from the bottom up. It reveals that the cognitive skills required to make and use notebooks were not simply aids to reason; rather, they were part of reason itself.