Beyond the Learned Academy
The Practice of Mathematics, 1600-1850
Published on 5. January 2024
Book
Hardback
512 pages
978-0-19-886395-3 (ISBN)
Description
The tremendous growth of the mathematical sciences in the early modern world was reflected contemporaneously in an increasingly sophisticated level of practical mathematics in fields such as merchants' accounts, instrument making, teaching, navigation, and gauging. In many ways, mathematics shaped the knowledge culture of the age, infiltrating workshops, dockyards, and warehouses, before extending through the factories of the Industrial Revolution to the trading companies and banks of the nineteenth century.
While theoretical developments in the history of mathematics have been made the topic of numerous scholarly investigations, in many cases based around the work of key figures such as Descartes, Huygens, Leibniz, or Newton, practical mathematics, especially from the seventeenth century onwards, has been largely neglected.
The present volume, comprising fifteen essays by leading authorities in the history of mathematics, seeks to fill this gap by exemplifying the richness, diversity, and breadth of mathematical practice from the seventeenth century through to the middle of the nineteenth century.
While theoretical developments in the history of mathematics have been made the topic of numerous scholarly investigations, in many cases based around the work of key figures such as Descartes, Huygens, Leibniz, or Newton, practical mathematics, especially from the seventeenth century onwards, has been largely neglected.
The present volume, comprising fifteen essays by leading authorities in the history of mathematics, seeks to fill this gap by exemplifying the richness, diversity, and breadth of mathematical practice from the seventeenth century through to the middle of the nineteenth century.
Reviews / Votes
No quote betters sums up what this marvellous book represents. * Cliff Cunningham, Sun News Austin * This beautifully produced book shows what historians of mathematics do and what they can do. * Tony Crilly, The Mathematical Gazette *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 241 mm
Width: 167 mm
Thickness: 35 mm
Weight
1018 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-886395-3 (9780198863953)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Philip Beeley | Christopher Hollings
Beyond the Learned Academy
The Practice of Mathematics, 1600-1850
E-Book
01/2024
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€33.99
Available for download
Philip Beeley | Christopher Hollings
Beyond the Learned Academy
The Practice of Mathematics, 1600-1850
E-Book
12/2023
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€33.99
Available for download
Persons
Philip Beeley studied philosophy, mathematics, and history of exact sciences and technology at the University College of North Wales, and at the Technische Universitaet in Berlin, gaining his PhD in 1993. He held posts at the University of Hamburg and University of Muenster before coming to Oxford in 2007. He is the former President of the British Society for the History of Mathematics and is a member of the International Academy of the History of Science.
Christopher Hollings studied mathematics at the University of York, gaining his PhD in 2007. He has held post-doctoral positions in mathematics at the universities of Lisbon and Manchester, before moving to Oxford in 2010 as a researcher in the history of mathematics.
Christopher Hollings studied mathematics at the University of York, gaining his PhD in 2007. He has held post-doctoral positions in mathematics at the universities of Lisbon and Manchester, before moving to Oxford in 2010 as a researcher in the history of mathematics.
Editor
Research Fellow and TutorResearch Fellow and Tutor, Faculty of History and Linacre College, University of Oxford
Departmental Lecturer in Mathematics and its History; Clifford Norton Senior Research Fellow in the History of MathematicsDepartmental Lecturer in Mathematics and its History; Clifford Norton Senior Research Fellow in the History of Mathematics, The Queen's College, University of Oxford
Content
1: Philip Beeley and Christopher Hollings: Introduction Part I - Navigation, Seafaring, Warfare 2: Jim Bennett: 'Mecanicall Practises Drawne from the Artes Mathematick': the Mathematical Identity of the Elizabethan Navigator John Davis 3: Margaret E. Schotte: Navigation Exams in the Early Modern Period 4: Rebekah Higgitt: Mathematical Examiners at Trinity House: Teaching and Examining Mathematics for Navigation in London During the Long Eighteenth Century 5: Joao Caramalho Domingues: What Mathematics for Portuguese Military Engineers? From the Class of Fortification to the Military Academy of Lisbon Part II - Professions, Societies, and Cultures of Mathematics 6: Sloan Evans Despeaux and Brigitte Stenhouse: Mathematical Men in Humble Life: Philomaths from North-west England as Editors of 'Questions for Answer' Journals 7: Benjamin Wardhaugh: Collection, Use, Dispersal: The Library of Charles Hutton and the Fate of Georgian Mathematics 8: Christopher D. Hollings: Mathematics at the Literary and Philosophical Societies 9: David R. Bellhouse: The Evolution of Actuarial Science to 1848 Part III - Mathematical Practitioners and their Scientific Milieus 10: Stefano Gulizia: Assembling the Scribal Self: Gian Vincenzo Pinelli's Circle and Mathematical Practitioners in the Veneto, c. 1580-1606 11: Philip Beeley: Mathematical Businesses: Seventeenth-Century Practitioners and their Academic Friends 12: Thomas Morel: 'All of This Was Born on Paper': The Mathematics of Tunnelling in Eighteenth-Century Metallic Mines Part IV - The Practice and Teaching of Mathematics 13: Ivo Schneider: Climbing the Social Ladder: Johannes Faulhaber's Path from Schoolmaster to Fortification Engineer 14: Albrecht Heeffer: The Difficult Relation of Surveyors with Algebra: The Hundred Mathematical Questions of Cardinael 15: Boris Jardine: The Life Mathematick: John and Euclid Speidell, and the Centrality of Instruments in Seventeenth-Century Pedagogy 16: Mark McCartney: James Thomson Senior and Mathematics at the Belfast Academical Institution, 1814-1832