Mathematics and the Historian's Craft

Mathematics and the Historian's Craft

Author: Michael Kinyon

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2006-06-18

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 0387282726

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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


Mathematics and the Historian's Craft

Mathematics and the Historian's Craft

Author: Glen van Brummelen

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2005-06-14

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 9780387252841

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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


Thinking About History

Thinking About History

Author: Sarah Maza

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2017-09-18

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 022610947X

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What distinguishes history as a discipline from other fields of study? That's the animating question of Sarah Maza’s Thinking About History, a general introduction to the field of history that revels in its eclecticism and highlights the inherent tensions and controversies that shape it. Designed for the classroom, Thinking About History is organized around big questions: Whose history do we write, and how does that affect what stories get told and how they are told? How did we come to view the nation as the inevitable context for history, and what happens when we move outside those boundaries? What is the relation among popular, academic, and public history, and how should we evaluate sources? What is the difference between description and interpretation, and how do we balance them? Maza provides choice examples in place of definitive answers, and the result is a book that will spark classroom discussion and offer students a view of history as a vibrant, ever-changing field of inquiry that is thoroughly relevant to our daily lives.


Mathematics and Art

Mathematics and Art

Author: Lynn Gamwell

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 576

ISBN-13: 0691165289

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This is a cultural history of mathematics and art, from antiquity to the present. Mathematicians and artists have long been on a quest to understand the physical world they see before them and the abstract objects they know by thought alone. Taking readers on a tour of the practice of mathematics and the philosophical ideas that drive the discipline, Lynn Gamwell points out the important ways mathematical concepts have been expressed by artists. Sumptuous illustrations of artworks and cogent math diagrams are featured in Gamwell's comprehensive exploration. Gamwell begins by describing mathematics from antiquity to the Enlightenment, including Greek, Islamic, and Asian mathematics. Then focusing on modern culture, Gamwell traces mathematicians' search for the foundations of their science, such as David Hilbert's conception of mathematics as an arrangement of meaning-free signs, as well as artists' search for the essence of their craft, such as Aleksandr Rodchenko's monochrome paintings. She shows that self-reflection is inherent to the practice of both modern mathematics and art, and that this introspection points to a deep resonance between the two fields: Kurt Gödel posed questions about the nature of mathematics in the language of mathematics and Jasper Johns asked "What is art?" in the vocabulary of art. Throughout, Gamwell describes the personalities and cultural environments of a multitude of mathematicians and artists, from Gottlob Frege and Benoît Mandelbrot to Max Bill and Xu Bing. Mathematics and Art demonstrates how mathematical ideas are embodied in the visual arts and will enlighten all who are interested in the complex intellectual pursuits, personalities, and cultural settings that connect these vast disciplines.


The Mathematics of the Heavens and the Earth

The Mathematics of the Heavens and the Earth

Author: Glen Van Brummelen

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2021-08-10

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 1400833310

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The Mathematics of the Heavens and the Earth is the first major history in English of the origins and early development of trigonometry. Glen Van Brummelen identifies the earliest known trigonometric precursors in ancient Egypt, Babylon, and Greece, and he examines the revolutionary discoveries of Hipparchus, the Greek astronomer believed to have been the first to make systematic use of trigonometry in the second century BC while studying the motions of the stars. The book traces trigonometry's development into a full-fledged mathematical discipline in India and Islam; explores its applications to such areas as geography and seafaring navigation in the European Middle Ages and Renaissance; and shows how trigonometry retained its ancient roots at the same time that it became an important part of the foundation of modern mathematics. The Mathematics of the Heavens and the Earth looks at the controversies as well, including disputes over whether Hipparchus was indeed the father of trigonometry, whether Indian trigonometry is original or derived from the Greeks, and the extent to which Western science is indebted to Islamic trigonometry and astronomy. The book also features extended excerpts of translations of original texts, and detailed yet accessible explanations of the mathematics in them. No other book on trigonometry offers the historical breadth, analytical depth, and coverage of non-Western mathematics that readers will find in The Mathematics of the Heavens and the Earth.


The Historian's Craft

The Historian's Craft

Author: Marc Bloch

Publisher:

Published: 2024-06-08

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9789360804695

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This book explains that the history based on judgemental aspect is something not to be done, and provides a wider explanation rather than providing in normative terms.


The Historian's Craft

The Historian's Craft

Author: Marc Bloch

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 9780719032929

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This work, by the co-founder of the "Annales School" deals with the uses and methods of history. It is useful for students of history, teachers of historiography and all those interested in the writings of the Annales school.


The Mathematics of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, and Islam

The Mathematics of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, and Islam

Author: Victor J. Katz

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2007-08-05

Total Pages: 712

ISBN-13: 9780691114859

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In recent decades it has become obvious that mathematics has always been a worldwide activity. But this is the first book to provide a substantial collection of English translations of key mathematical texts from the five most important ancient and medieval non-Western mathematical cultures, and to put them into full historical and mathematical context. The Mathematics of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, and Islam gives English readers a firsthand understanding and appreciation of these cultures' important contributions to world mathematics. The five section authors--Annette Imhausen (Egypt), Eleanor Robson (Mesopotamia), Joseph Dauben (China), Kim Plofker (India), and J. Lennart Berggren (Islam)--are experts in their fields. Each author has selected key texts and in many cases provided new translations. The authors have also written substantial section introductions that give an overview of each mathematical culture and explanatory notes that put each selection into context. This authoritative commentary allows readers to understand the sometimes unfamiliar mathematics of these civilizations and the purpose and significance of each text. Addressing a critical gap in the mathematics literature in English, this book is an essential resource for anyone with at least an undergraduate degree in mathematics who wants to learn about non-Western mathematical developments and how they helped shape and enrich world mathematics. The book is also an indispensable guide for mathematics teachers who want to use non-Western mathematical ideas in the classroom.


Duel at Dawn

Duel at Dawn

Author: Amir Alexander

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2011-10-15

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0674061748

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In the fog of a Paris dawn in 1832, ƒvariste Galois, the 20-year-old founder of modern algebra, was shot and killed in a duel. That gunshot, suggests Amir Alexander, marked the end of one era in mathematics and the beginning of another. Arguing that not even the purest mathematics can be separated from its cultural background, Alexander shows how popular stories about mathematicians are really morality tales about their craft as it relates to the world. In the eighteenth century, Alexander says, mathematicians were idealized as child-like, eternally curious, and uniquely suited to reveal the hidden harmonies of the world. But in the nineteenth century, brilliant mathematicians like Galois became Romantic heroes like poets, artists, and musicians. The ideal mathematician was now an alienated loner, driven to despondency by an uncomprehending world. A field that had been focused on the natural world now sought to create its own reality. Higher mathematics became a world unto itselfÑpure and governed solely by the laws of reason. In this strikingly original book that takes us from Paris to St. Petersburg, Norway to Transylvania, Alexander introduces us to national heroes and outcasts, innocents, swindlers, and martyrsÐall uncommonly gifted creators of modern mathematics.


Heavenly Mathematics

Heavenly Mathematics

Author: Glen Van Brummelen

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2017-04-04

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 0691175993

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"Spherical trigonometry was at the heart of astronomy and ocean-going navigation for two millennia. The discipline was a mainstay of mathematics education for centuries, and it was a standard subject in high schools until the 1950s. Today, however, it is rarely taught. Heavenly Mathematics traces the rich history of this forgotten art, revealing how the cultures of classical Greece, medieval Islam, and the modern West used spherical trigonometry to chart the heavens and the Earth."--Jacket.