Collection, use, dispersal: the library of Charles Hutton and the fate of Georgian mathematics
January 2024
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Chapter
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Beyond the Learned Academy: The Practice of Mathematics, 1600-1850
Introduction
October 2020
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Chapter
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Reading Mathematics in the Early Modern World
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book addresses the questions from a variety of perspectives, deploying evidence ranging from micro-historical studies of specific artefacts to wider-ranging surveys of milieus, corpora, and libraries. It examines the reading of learned and classic mathematical texts, including those of Euclid and Tycho. The book considers the reading of mathematical diagrams in a broader perspective, discussing the changes in the nature and function of diagrams in Euclidean print which took place across the early modern period. It also addresses mathematics in the English universities in the seventeenth century. The book offers a close and insightful reading of the several layers of annotation on the copy found in the Whipple Museum in Cambridge of Leonard Digges’ Pantometria, a text which itself is characterized by a multi-layered, multi-author texture and a plurality of voices.
Reading Mathematics in Early Modern Europe, Studies in the Production, Collection, and Use of Mathematical Books
October 2020
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Book
4705 Literary Studies, 3903 Education Systems, 39 Education, 43 History, Heritage and Archaeology, 47 Language, Communication and Culture, 4303 Historical Studies, 50 Philosophy and Religious Studies, 5002 History and Philosophy Of Specific Fields, Prevention
Euclid in print, 1482–1703. A catalogue of the editions of the Elements and other Euclidean works
January 2020
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Scholarly edition
Practical mathematicians and mathematical practice in later seventeenth-century London.
June 2019
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Journal article
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British journal for the history of science
Mathematical practitioners in seventeenth-century London formed a cohesive knowledge community that intersected closely with instrument-makers, printers and booksellers. Many wrote books for an increasingly numerate metropolitan market on topics covering a wide range of mathematical disciplines, ranging from algebra to arithmetic, from merchants' accounts to the art of surveying. They were also teachers of mathematics like John Kersey or Euclid Speidell who would use their own rooms or the premises of instrument-makers for instruction. There was a high degree of interdependency even beyond their immediate milieu. Authors would cite not only each other, but also practitioners of other professions, especially those artisans with whom they collaborated closely. Practical mathematical books effectively served as an advertising medium for the increasingly self-conscious members of a new emerging professional class. Contemporaries would talk explicitly of 'the London mathematicians' in distinction to their academic counterparts at Oxford or Cambridge. The article takes a closer look at this metropolitan knowledge culture during the second half of the century, considering its locations, its meeting places and the mathematical clubs which helped forge the identity of its practitioners. It discusses their backgrounds, teaching practices and relations to the London book trade, which supplied inexpensive practical mathematical books to a seemingly insatiable public.
Physical arguments and moral inducements: John Wallis on questions of antiquarianism and natural philosophy
October 2018
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Journal article
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Notes and Records of the Royal Society
In his posthumously published work Chartham News (1669), the antiquary William Somner tentatively sought to link the discovery of fossilized remains near Canterbury to the prehistoric existence of an isthmus connecting Britain and France, before calling on natural philosophers to pursue his explanation further. This call was eventually heeded by the Oxford mathematician John Wallis, but only after more than thirty years had elapsed. The arrival in England of a catalogue of questions concerning the geology of the Channel led to the republication of Chartham News in the Philosophical Transactions, prompting Wallis to develop a physical explanation based on his intimate knowledge of the Kent coastline. Unbeknown to Wallis at the time, that catalogue had been sent by G. W. Leibniz, who had in turn received it from G. D. Schmidt, the former Resident of Brunswick-Lüneburg in Sweden. Wallis's explanation, based on the principle of establishing physical causes both for the rupturing of the isthmus and for the origin of fossils, placed him in a camp opposed by Newtonian authors such as John Harris at a time when the priority dispute over the discovery of the calculus led to the severing of his ties with the German mathematician and philosopher Leibniz.
This chapter discusses Leibniz’s earliest work on physical questions. It begins with how his discovery of contemporary publications on the laws of motion prompted him to investigate the topic for himself, leading him to make a fundamental distinction between pure theory and natural phenomena. From this distinction emerged his two tracts Theoria motus abstracti and Hypothesis physica nova, the latter of which played an important role in his admission to the fellowship of the Royal Society in 1673. Salient parts of these two tracts are outlined, as are some of the more important physical ideas Leibniz developed from them during his stay in Paris.
‘To the publike advancement’ John Collins and the promotion of mathematical knowledge in Restoration England
February 2017
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Journal article
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BSHM Bulletin
From quadratures to cryptography. On the quatercentenary of the birth of the Oxford mathematician John Wallis
December 2016
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Journal article
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Mathematics Today -Southend on Sea-
Breaking the Code. John Wallis and the Politics of Concealment
July 2016
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Chapter
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G. W. Leibniz und der Gelehrtenhabitus
SBTMR
Carcavi, Pierre de
January 2016
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Chapter
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The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon
The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon is the definitive reference source on René Descartes, "the father of modern philosophy" and arguably among the most important philosophers of all time.
History of Science
Debeaune (De Beaune), Florimond
January 2016
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Chapter
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The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon
The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon is the definitive reference source on René Descartes, "the father of modern philosophy" and arguably among the most important philosophers of all time.
History of Science
Desargues, Girard
January 2016
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Chapter
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The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon
The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon is the definitive reference source on René Descartes, "the father of modern philosophy" and arguably among the most important philosophers of all time.
Philosophy
Fermat, Pierre de
January 2016
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Chapter
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The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon
The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon is the definitive reference source on René Descartes, "the father of modern philosophy" and arguably among the most important philosophers of all time.
Philosophy
Geometry
January 2016
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Chapter
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The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon
The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon is the definitive reference source on René Descartes, "the father of modern philosophy" and arguably among the most important philosophers of all time.
Philosophy
Mydorge, Claude
January 2016
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Chapter
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The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon
The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon is the definitive reference source on René Descartes, "the father of modern philosophy" and arguably among the most important philosophers of all time.
Philosophy
Roberval, Gilles Personne de (1602–1675)
January 2016
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Chapter
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Cambridge Descartes Lexicon
The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon is the definitive reference source on René Descartes, "the father of modern philosophy" and arguably among the most important philosophers of all time.
SBTMR, Philosophy
G. W. Leibniz, Interrelations between Mathematics and Philosophy
May 2015
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Book
Drawing on the extensive number of letters and papers published in recent years, the volume investigates the interconnections between mathematics and philosophy in Leibniz's thought.
SBTMR
Book review: Sarah Dry, The Newton Papers: The Strange and True Odyssey of Isaac Newton’s Manuscripts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, xi + 238 pages. $29.95
February 2015
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Journal article
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Physics in Perspective
SBTMR
Correspondence of John Wallis (1616-1703): Volume IV (1672-April 1675)
July 2014
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Book
The volume allows us to gain a deeper understanding of the background to these debates. Furthermore, the volume throws important new light on the history of the University of Oxford and of theUniversity Press in the early modern period.
Science
In Memoriam Christoph J. Scriba (6 October 1929-26 July 2013)
January 2014
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Journal article
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Historia Mathematica
Academic tools are seldom seen by others, but can be most revealing. During a stay of over two years in Oxford in the early 1960s, working towards his habilitation thesis, Christoph Scriba prepared a personal card catalogue of all the letters of John Wallis (1616–1703) he had unearthed in, amongst other places, the Bodleian and various college libraries, in the Royal Society and the British Museum. On each card he noted details of date, manuscript and printed sources, and any other relevant bibliographic information. This was not all. He also produced two further catalogues: one of all manuscripts containing Wallis’s papers and letters, listing systematically the content of each of the folio sheets, and one of all the books formerly in the Library of the Savilian professors, now part of the Bodleian, giving precise details of when he had ordered each of the books and when they had been returned to the stacks, after inspection for underlining, marginalia, and so on. Nor did he buy neat new cards specifically for this purpose, as they would have been available from Oxford stationers at the time. Instead, he re-cycled the insides of envelopes used for sending him letters, some white, some brown, some grey, cutting them down to a uniform size. And these cards, carefully inscribed, were not housed in a varnished wooden box such as could then be found in libraries or offices up and down the country, but rather in re-used cartons, one for coffee filters here, one for a presentation table lighter there. The appearance does not diminish the content or the value in any way. These painstakingly produced catalogues and records of scholarly practice were not only accurate and reliable, but also contained a wealth of information which has only very rarely been superseded. Historical research instruments born of the shortages of post-war Europe and prepared by a careful mind averse to wastefulness, they are still in use today.
Nova methodus investigandi. On the concept of analysis in John Wallis's mathematical writings
January 2013
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Journal article
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Studia Leibnitiana
Correspondence of John Wallis (1616-1703) Volume III (October 1668-1671)
May 2012
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Book
Vol. 1: This is the first in a six volume compendium on the correspondences of John Wallis (1616-1703).
History
The Correspondence of John Wallis (1616-1703) Volume II (1660 - September 1668)
January 2005
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Book
This is the second volume of a six volume compendium on the correspondences of John Wallis (1616-1703).
Mathematics
Book Review
January 2004
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Journal article
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Medical History
4303 Historical Studies, 50 Philosophy and Religious Studies, 43 History, Heritage and Archaeology, 5002 History and Philosophy Of Specific Fields
The Correspondence of John Wallis (1616-1703) Volume 1 (1641 - 1659)
July 2003
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Book
This is the first of a six volume edition of the correspondence of John Wallis, who was a central figure in the scientific revolution in 17th century England.