Displaying similar documents to “The mathematical encyclopaedia of the 15th century, Arithmetical operations, fractions, progressions, linear equations and roots of real numbers, according to the Codex Vindobonensis phil. gr. 65 of the 15th century”

It’s not that they couldn’t

Reviel Netz (2002)

Revue d'histoire des mathématiques

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The article offers a critique of the notion of ‘concepts’ in the history of mathematics. Authors in the field sometimes assume an argument from conceptual impossibility: that certain authors could not do X because they did not have concept Y. The case of the divide between Greek and modern mathematics is discussed in detail, showing that the argument from conceptual impossibility is empirically as well as theoretically flawed. An alternative account of historical diversity is offered,...

Positive Thinking. Conceptions of Negative Quantities in the Netherlands and the Reception of Lacroix’s Algebra Textbook

Danny J. Beckers (2000)

Revue d'histoire des mathématiques

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The beginning of the 19th century witnessed the emergence of several new approaches to negative numbers. New notions of rigour made the 18th century conceptions of negative quantities unacceptable. This paper discusses theories of negative numbers emerging in the Netherlands in the early 19th century. Dutch mathematicians then opted for a different approach than that of their contemporaries, in Germany or France. The Dutch translation (1821) of Lacroix’s illustrates the ‘Dutch’ notion...

Mathematics and Morality on the Cusp of Modernity

Peter Dear (2001)

Revue d'histoire des mathématiques

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This note suggests that a fruitful way of investigating the history of mathematics lies in consideration of its pedagogical purposes. As a general illustration of the directions that such an approach might take, the paper discusses early-modern arguments for the practical utility of mathematics and its capacity to inculcate good habits of thought, as well as the appearance of new uses for mathematical training in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that served the purpose...