The War Of Guns And Mathematics

For a long time, World War I has been shortchanged by the historiography of science. Until recently, World War II was usually considered as the defining event for the formation of the modern relationship between science and society. In this context, the effects of the First World War, by contrast, were often limited to the massive deaths of promising young scientists. By focusing on a few key places (Paris, Cambridge, Rome, Chicago, and others), the present book gathers studies representing a broad spectrum of positions adopted by mathematicians about the conflict, from militant pacifism to military, scientific, or ideological mobilization. The use of mathematics for war is thoroughly examined. This book suggests a new vision of the long-term influence of World War I on mathematics and mathematicians. Continuities and discontinuities in the structure and organization of the mathematical sciences are discussed, as well as their images in various milieux. Topics of research and the values with which they were defended are scrutinized. This book, in particular, proposes a more in-depth evaluation of the issue of modernity and modernization in mathematics. The issue of scientific international relations after the war is revisited by a close look at the situation in a few Allied countries (France, Britain, Italy, and the USA). The historiography has emphasized the place of Germany as the leading mathematical country before WWI and the absurdity of its postwar ostracism by the Allies. The studies presented here help explain how dramatically different prewar situations, prolonged interaction during the war, and new international postwar organizations led to attempts at redrafting models for mathematical developments.

Cover -- Title page -- Contents -- List of figures -- List of tables -- Contributors -- Foreword -- Placing World War I in the history of mathematics -- Starting Up -- Cambridge mathematicians' responses to the First World War -- The total war of Paris mathematicians -- Joining In -- Italian mathematicians and the First World War: Intellectual debates and institutional innovations -- A mobilized community: Mathematicians in the United States during the First World War -- Moving On -- Debating the place of mathematics at the École polytechnique around World War I -- "I'm just a mathematician": Why and how mathematicians collaborated with military ballisticians at Gâvre -- Why aerodynamics failed to take off in Nancy: An unexpected casualty of World War I -- Index -- Back Cover

This book is a consequence of the international meeting organized in Marseilles in November 2018 devoted to the aftermath of the Great War for mathematical communities. It features selected original research presented at the meeting offering a new perspective on a period, the 1920s, not extensively considered by historiography. After 1918, new countries were created, and borders of several others were modified. Territories were annexed while some countries lost entire regions. These territorial changes bear witness to the massive and varied upheavals with which European societies were confronted in the aftermath of the Great War. The reconfiguration of political Europe was accompanied by new alliances and a redistribution of trade – commercial, intellectual, artistic, military, and so on – which largely shaped international life during the interwar period. These changes also had an enormous impact on scientific life, not only in practice, but also in its organization and communication strategies. The mathematical sciences, which from the late 19th century to the 1920s experienced a deep disciplinary evolution, were thus facing a double movement, internal and external, which led to a sustainable restructuring of research and teaching. Concomitantly, various areas such as topology, functional analysis, abstract algebra, logic or probability, among others, experienced exceptional development. This was accompanied by an explosion of new international or national associations of mathematicians with for instance the founding, in 1918, of the International Mathematical Union and the controversial creation of the International Research Council. Therefore, the central idea for the articulation of the various chapters of the book is to present case studies illustrating how in the aftermath of the war, many mathematicians had to organize their personal trajectories taking into account the evolution of the political, social and scientific environment which had taken place at the end of the conflict.

"A former Wall Street quantitative analyst sounds an alarm on mathematical modeling, a pervasive new force in society that threatens to undermine democracy and widen inequality,"--NoveList.

Keith Lucas was killed instantly when his BE2 biplane collided with that of a colleague over Salisbury Plain on 5 October 1916. As a captain in the Royal Flying Corps, Lucas would have known that his death was a very real risk of the work he was doing in support of Britain's war effort. But Lucas wasn't a career pilot - he was a scientist. The Flying Mathematicians of World War I details the advances and sacrifices of a select group of pioneers who left the safety of their laboratories to drive aeronautics forward at a critical moment in history. These mathematicians and scientists, including Lucas, took up the challenge to advance British aviation during the war and soon realized that they would need to learn how to fly themselves if they were to complete their mission. Set in the context of a new field of engineering, driven apace by conflict, the book follows Lucas and his colleagues as they endured freezing cockpits and engaged in aerial versions of Russian roulette in order to expand our understanding of aeronautics. Tony Royle deftly navigates this fascinating history of technical achievement, imagination, and ingenuity punctuated by bravery, persistence, and tragedy. As a result, The Flying Mathematicians of World War I makes accessible the mathematics and the personal stories that forever changed the course of aviation.

A meticulously researched history on the development of American mathematics in the three decades following World War I As the Roaring Twenties lurched into the Great Depression, to be followed by the scourge of Nazi Germany and World War II, American mathematicians pursued their research, positioned themselves collectively within American science, and rose to global mathematical hegemony. How did they do it? The New Era in American Mathematics, 1920–1950 explores the institutional, financial, social, and political forces that shaped and supported this community in the first half of the twentieth century. In doing so, Karen Hunger Parshall debunks the widely held view that American mathematics only thrived after European émigrés fled to the shores of the United States. Drawing from extensive archival and primary-source research, Parshall uncovers the key players in American mathematics who worked together to effect change and she looks at their research output over the course of three decades. She highlights the educational, professional, philanthropic, and governmental entities that bolstered progress. And she uncovers the strategies implemented by American mathematicians in their quest for the advancement of knowledge. Throughout, she considers how geopolitical circumstances shifted the course of the discipline. Examining how the American mathematical community asserted itself on the international stage, The New Era in American Mathematics, 1920–1950 shows the way one nation became the focal point for the field.

This book examines the historically unique conditions under which the International Congress of Mathematicians took place in Oslo in 1936. This Congress was the only one on this level to be held during the period of the Nazi regime in Germany (1933–1945) and after the wave of emigrations from it. Relying heavily on unpublished archival sources, the authors consider the different goals of the various participants in the Congress, most notably those of the Norwegian organizers, and the Nazi-led German delegation. They also investigate the reasons for the absence of the proposed Soviet and Italian delegations. In addition, aiming to shed light onto the mathematical dimension of the Congress, the authors provide overviews of the nineteen plenary presentations, as well as their planning and development. Biographical information about each of the plenary speakers rounds off the picture. The Oslo Congress, the first at which Fields Medals were awarded, is used as a lens through which the reader of this book can view the state of the art of mathematics in the mid-1930s.

This is the first truly comprehensive and thorough history of the development of a mathematical community in the United States and Canada. This second volume starts at the turn of the twentieth century with a mathematical community that is firmly established and traces its growth over the next forty years, at the end of which the American mathematical community is pre-eminent in the world. In the preface to the first volume of this work Zitarelli reveals his animating philosophy, “I find that the human factor lends life and vitality to any subject.” History of mathematics, in the Zitarelli conception, is not just a collection of abstract ideas and their development. It is a community of people and practices joining together to understand, perpetuate, and advance those ideas and each other. Telling the story of mathematics means telling the stories of these people: their accomplishments and triumphs; the institutions and structures they built; their interpersonal and scientific interactions; and their failures and shortcomings. One of the most hopeful developments of the period 1900–1941 in American mathematics was the opening of the community to previously excluded populations. Increasing numbers of women were welcomed into mathematics, many of whom—including Anna Pell Wheeler, Olive Hazlett, and Mayme Logsdon—are profiled in these pages. Black mathematicians were often systemically excluded during this period, but, in spite of the obstacles, Elbert Frank Cox, Dudley Woodard, David Blackwell, and others built careers of significant accomplishment that are described here. The effect on the substantial community of European immigrants is detailed through the stories of dozens of individuals. In clear and compelling prose Zitarelli, Dumbaugh, and Kennedy spin a tale accessible to experts, general readers, and anyone interested in the history of science in North America.