Mathematics and the Historian's Craft

Mathematics and the Historian's Craft PDF Author: Michael Kinyon
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387282726
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
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 PDF Author: Michael Kinyon
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387282726
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 366

Get Book Here

Book Description
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

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

The Mathematics of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, and Islam PDF Author: Victor J. Katz
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691114859
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 712

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Book Description
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.

The Historian's Craft

The Historian's Craft PDF Author: Marc Bloch
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789360804695
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
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 Mathematics of the Heavens and the Earth

The Mathematics of the Heavens and the Earth PDF Author: Glen Van Brummelen
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400833310
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
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 PDF Author: Marc Bloch
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719032929
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
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.

Duel at Dawn

Duel at Dawn PDF Author: Amir Alexander
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674061748
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
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.

Mathematics and Art

Mathematics and Art PDF Author: Lynn Gamwell
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691165289
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 576

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Book Description
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 Landscape of History

The Landscape of History PDF Author: John Lewis Gaddis
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780195171570
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
What is history and why should we study it? Is there such a thing as historical truth? Is history a science? One of the most accomplished historians at work today, John Lewis Gaddis, answers these and other questions in this short, witty, and humane book. The Landscape of History is at once an engaging introduction to the historical method for beginners, a powerful reaffirmation of it for practitioners, a startling challenge to social scientists, and an effective skewering of post-modernist claims that we can't know anything at all about the past. It will be essential reading for anyone who reads, writes, teaches, or cares about history.

Modern Mathematics

Modern Mathematics PDF Author: Dirk De Bock
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031111664
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 615

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Book Description
The international New Math developments between about 1950 through 1980, are regarded by many mathematics educators and education historians as the most historically important development in curricula of the twentieth century. It attracted the attention of local and international politicians, of teachers, and of parents, and influenced the teaching and learning of mathematics at all levels—kindergarten to college graduate—in many nations. After garnering much initial support it began to attract criticism. But, as Bill Jacob and the late Jerry Becker show in Chapter 17, some of the effects became entrenched. This volume, edited by Professor Dirk De Bock, of Belgium, provides an outstanding overview of the New Math/modern mathematics movement. Chapter authors provide exceptionally high-quality analyses of the rise of the movement, and of subsequent developments, within a range of nations. The first few chapters show how the initial leadership came from mathematicians in European nations and in the United States of America. The background leaders in Europe were Caleb Gattegno and members of a mysterious group of mainly French pure mathematicians, who since the 1930s had published under the name of (a fictitious) “Nicolas Bourbaki.” In the United States, there emerged, during the 1950s various attempts to improve U.S. mathematics curricula and teaching, especially in secondary schools and colleges. This side of the story climaxed in 1957 when the Soviet Union succeeded in launching “Sputnik,” the first satellite. Undoubtedly, this is a landmark publication in education. The foreword was written by Professor Bob Moon, one of a few other scholars to have written on the New Math from an international perspective. The final “epilogue” chapter, by Professor Geert Vanpaemel, a historian, draws together the overall thrust of the volume, and makes links with the general history of curriculum development, especially in science education, including recent globalization trends.

The Princeton Guide to Historical Research

The Princeton Guide to Historical Research PDF Author: Zachary Schrag
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691215480
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
The essential handbook for doing historical research in the twenty-first century The Princeton Guide to Historical Research provides students, scholars, and professionals with the skills they need to practice the historian's craft in the digital age, while never losing sight of the fundamental values and techniques that have defined historical scholarship for centuries. Zachary Schrag begins by explaining how to ask good questions and then guides readers step-by-step through all phases of historical research, from narrowing a topic and locating sources to taking notes, crafting a narrative, and connecting one's work to existing scholarship. He shows how researchers extract knowledge from the widest range of sources, such as government documents, newspapers, unpublished manuscripts, images, interviews, and datasets. He demonstrates how to use archives and libraries, read sources critically, present claims supported by evidence, tell compelling stories, and much more. Featuring a wealth of examples that illustrate the methods used by seasoned experts, The Princeton Guide to Historical Research reveals that, however varied the subject matter and sources, historians share basic tools in the quest to understand people and the choices they made. Offers practical step-by-step guidance on how to do historical research, taking readers from initial questions to final publication Connects new digital technologies to the traditional skills of the historian Draws on hundreds of examples from a broad range of historical topics and approaches Shares tips for researchers at every skill level