{"title":"The Edinburgh Mathematical Laboratory and Edmund Taylor Whittaker's role in the early development of numerical analysis in Britain","authors":"Alison Maidment","doi":"10.1016/j.hm.2020.09.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.hm.2020.09.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In 1912, Edmund Taylor Whittaker (1873–1956) was appointed to the Chair of Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh. The following year he opened the Edinburgh Mathematical Laboratory. The purpose of the Laboratory was practical instruction in topics which are now classed together as numerical analysis.</p><p>In this article I explore the inspiration, purpose, and impact of the Laboratory in the context of early 20th century British applied mathematics.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51061,"journal":{"name":"Historia Mathematica","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.hm.2020.09.002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45089162","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Notes on contributors","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/S0315-0860(21)00030-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/S0315-0860(21)00030-6","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51061,"journal":{"name":"Historia Mathematica","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/S0315-0860(21)00030-6","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136816960","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On resolving singularities of plane curves via a theorem attributed to Alfred Clebsch","authors":"David E. Rowe","doi":"10.1016/j.hm.2021.02.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.hm.2021.02.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper discusses a theorem in birational geometry that J.L. Coolidge attributed to Alfred Clebsch. The background is reconstructed from letters Felix Klein exchanged with Max Noether in 1894, when Noether was completing work on a lengthy report with Alexander Brill on the history of algebraic functions. Noether was deeply troubled to learn that Klein had informed him back in 1869 about relevant results that Clebsch and Leopold Kronecker had discussed in Berlin. These exchanges with Klein led to revisions in the Brill-Noether report, made in part to ensure Noether's own priority rights and larger intellectual legacy.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51061,"journal":{"name":"Historia Mathematica","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.hm.2021.02.001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41492471","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The “Circolo Matematico di Palermo” and the First World War: The crisis of scientific internationalism: a view through the unedited correspondence of De Franchis with Edmund Landau and other mathematicians","authors":"Cinzia Cerroni, Aldo Brigaglia","doi":"10.1016/j.hm.2021.04.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.hm.2021.04.004","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In this work the situation of the “Circolo Matematico di Palermo” between 1914 and 1928 is analyzed. It will be observed that during this time the Circolo was among the few European scientific associations with German as well as French associates. During the 1930s, the nationalist politics of Fascism and above all the racial laws dealt a deadly blow to the Circolo as an international scientific association. We will use the rich correspondence in the Circolo's archives to shed some light on this. In particular, the correspondence between M. De Franchis and E. Landau and other recently found documents will figure prominently.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51061,"journal":{"name":"Historia Mathematica","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.hm.2021.04.004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"99370382","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ricardo Rodríguez Hurtado , Juan A. Nicolás , Javier Echeverría Ezponda
{"title":"The geometric origin of perspectivist science in G.W. Leibniz. Analysis based on unpublished manuscripts","authors":"Ricardo Rodríguez Hurtado , Juan A. Nicolás , Javier Echeverría Ezponda","doi":"10.1016/j.hm.2020.12.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.hm.2020.12.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The perspectivist research carried out by G.W. Leibniz between 1679 and 1686 in the field of geometry is analysed. This work is reflected in six, as yet unpublished, texts, of which the main three are analysed: <em>Constructio et usus scalae perspectivae</em>, <em>Origo regularum artis perspectivae</em> and <em>Scientia perspectiva</em>. The philosophical perspectivism advocated by the German thinker is widely known, but his geometric research on perspective is much less so. This article seeks to remedy this situation. The first of these writings (<em>Constructio et usus scalae perspectivae</em>) includes Leibniz's experimentation with the perspectivist methodology of scales. Then, in <em>Origo regularum artis perspectivae quales</em>, Leibniz constructs his perspectivist <em>regula generalis</em>. Finally, Leibniz wrote <em>Scientia perspectiva and</em> readdresses the main rule of perspective and experiments with the theoretical limits of the analysis carried out in this discipline. Primarily, he supposed a ‘minimum distance’ between the elements that constitute it, and then theorised an ‘infinite interval’ between these same elements.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51061,"journal":{"name":"Historia Mathematica","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.hm.2020.12.001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44757748","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Permanence as a principle of practice","authors":"Iulian D. Toader","doi":"10.1016/j.hm.2020.08.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.hm.2020.08.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The paper discusses Peano's argument for preserving familiar notations. The argument reinforces the principle of permanence, articulated in the early 19th century by Peacock, then adjusted by Hankel and adopted by many others. Typically regarded as a principle of theoretical rationality, permanence was understood by Peano, following Mach, and against Schubert, as a principle of practical rationality. The paper considers how permanence, thus understood, was used in justifying Burali-Forti and Marcolongo's notation for vectorial calculus, and in rejecting Frege's logical notation, and closes by considering Hahn's revival of Peano's argument against Pringsheim's reading of permanence as a logically necessary principle.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51061,"journal":{"name":"Historia Mathematica","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.hm.2020.08.001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47849420","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Knowledge gained by experience”: Olaus Henrici—engineer, geometer and maker of mathematical models","authors":"June Barrow-Green","doi":"10.1016/j.hm.2020.10.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.hm.2020.10.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The German mathematician Olaus Henrici,<span><sup>1</sup></span> who was born in Denmark in 1840, studied engineering and mathematics in Germany before making his career in London. Initially, and for only a short time, he worked in an engineering business. He subsequently took on academic positions, first at University College London and then, from 1884, at the newly formed Central Institution (later Central Technical College) where he established a Laboratory of Mechanics. While at University College he became an active promoter of pure geometry and a producer of models of surfaces. In this paper I explore the geometrical side of Henrici's work, setting it into the context of his career and arguing that his interdisciplinary background was a key factor in his success as a creator of models.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51061,"journal":{"name":"Historia Mathematica","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.hm.2020.10.003","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44738898","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}