Revolutions In Mathematics

This book focuses on some of the major developments in the history of contemporary (19th and 20th century) mathematics as seen in the broader context of the development of science and culture. Avoiding technicalities, it displays the breadth of contrasting images of mathematics favoured by different countries, schools and historical movements, showing how the conception and practice of mathematics changed over time depending on the cultural and national context. Thus it provides an original perspective for embracing the richness and variety inherent in the development of mathematics. Attention is paid to the interaction of mathematics with themes whose proper treatment have been neglected by the traditional historiography of the discipline, such as the relationship between mathematics, statistics and medicine.

The essays in this book provide the first comprehensive treatment of the concept of revolution in mathematics. In 1962 an exciting discussion of revolutions in the natural sciences was prompted by the publication of Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. A fascinating but little knownoffshoot of this debate was begun in the USA in the mid-1970s: can the concept of revolutions be applied to mathematics as well as science? Michael Crowe declared that revolutions never occur in mathematics, while Joseph Dauben argued that there have been mathematical revolutions and gave someexamples.The original papers of Crowe, Dauben, and Mehrtens are reprinted in this book, together with additional chapters giving their current views. To this are added new contributions from nine further experts in the history of mathematics who each discuss an important episode and consider whether it was arevolution.This book is an excellent reference work and an ideal course text for both graduate and undergraduate courses in the history and philosophy of science and mathematics.

This volume brings together a number of leading scholars working in the field of ancient Greek mathematics to present their latest research. In their respective area of specialization, all contributors offer stimulating approaches to questions of historical and historiographical ‘revolutions’ and ‘continuity’. Taken together, they provide a powerful lens for evaluating the applicability of Thomas Kuhn’s ideas on ‘scientific revolutions’ to the discipline of ancient Greek mathematics. Besides the latest historiographical studies on ‘geometrical algebra’ and ‘premodern algebra’, the reader will find here some papers which offer new insights into the controversial relationship between Greek and pre-Hellenic mathematical practices. Some other contributions place emphasis on the other edge of the historical spectrum, by exploring historical lines of ‘continuity’ between ancient Greek, Byzantine and post-Hellenic mathematics. The terminology employed by Greek mathematicians, along with various non-textual and material elements, is another topic which some of the essays in the volume explore. Finally, the last three articles focus on a traditionally rich source on ancient Greek mathematics; namely the works of Plato and Aristotle.

"Circularity" is the story of a Janus-faced conceptual structure, that on the one hand led to deep scientific discoveries, and on the other hand is used to trick the mind into believing the impossible. Alongside mathematical revolutions that eventually led to the invention of the computer, the book describes ancient paradoxes that arise from circular thinking. Another aspect of circularity, its ability to entertain, leads to a surprising insight on the time old question "What is humor". The book presents the ubiquity of circularity in many fields, and its power to confuse and to instruct. See Press Release: Vicious circles -- confusing, instructive, amusing? Contents:The Dark Side — Paradoxes:MagicFree WillThe Mind–Body ProblemThe Illuminated Side — Scientific Breakthroughs:Large Infinities and Still Larger OnesGödel's Incompleteness TheoremTuring Invents the ComputerFor the Experienced Hikers Readership: Researchers in mathematics, philosophy and general public.

Discusses the direction in which the field of differential equations, and its teaching, is going.

First published in 1997, this title is a sequel to Dr Noel Curran's first book The Logical Universe: The Real Universe (published by Ashgate under the Avebury imprint, 1994). The philosophy of mathematics in this book is based on ideas of Sir William Rowan Hamilton on the ordinal character of numbers, the real numbers, the measure numbers, scalar numbers and the extension to vectors. The final extension is to Hamilton’s quaternions. This algebra is interpreted as the mathematics of spin. This led to a a new theory of time and space which is Euclidian. The motion of spin is absolute, no frame of reference is required. If time is assumed to have a beginning it would be asymmetric with an arrow. This concept is applied to the laws of nature, which are symmetrical. This is another Copernican Revolution in three aspects: absolute time is restored, time has an arrow - is asymmetric, and thirdly the theory is based on the motion of spin which is absolute and more fundamental than the motion of translation. This opens the way to the final unification of physics.