Mathematical Change in the 19th Century: Issues and Approaches

  • Date: 03/26/2008
Lecturer(s):

Tom Archibald (Mathematics, SFU)

Location: 

University of Victoria

Topic: 

The 19th Century is the period during which the university-based
international mathematical community came into being. It is also a time
when mathematics changed profoundly, becoming more abstract, and
distancing
itself to some degree in its practice from the natural sciences.
Historians writing in the 20th Century had a tendency to see these
changes as necessary, as part of a process in which the essential
concept-based nature
of mathematics emerged from a more applied background. In this paper we
examine this notion with reference to some specific examples including
work of Riemann, Weierstrass, Kronecker, Dedekind, Hermite, and
Poincaré.

Other Information: 

Special PIMS Lectures at UVIC 2008

Sponsor: 

pims