0000000000901393
AUTHOR
Reinhard Siegmund-schultze
showing 22 related works from this author
Pulling Harriot Out of Newton’s Shadow: How the Norwegian Outsider Johannes Lohne Came to Contribute to Mainstream History of Mathematics
2016
The focus of this paper is on the peculiarities of Lohne ’s “outsider approach” to the historiography of mathematics and physics. The main thesis is that the circumstances of Lohne ’s outsider position both narrowed down and sharpened the focus of his research, but that he succeeded because he joined the then rising tide of archival based and content oriented internalist research in the history of physics and mathematics and because he was supported by scholars such as D.T. Whiteside and J.E. Hofmann , whose connections to the international community were better than his own. The main conclusions are based on Lohne ’s Nachlass in Oslo and on some other archival sources. In addition Lohne ’s…
Hans Wußing (1927–2011) and the blooming of the history of mathematics and sciences in the German Democratic Republic – A biographical essay
2012
Authors version of an article published in the journal: Historia Mathematica. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.hm.2012.01.004
Weierstraß’s Approximation Theorem (1885) and his 1886 lecture course revisited
2015
The paper provides new insight into the origins of Weierstras’s 1886 lecture course on the foundations of function theory and of the mimeographed lecture notes connected to this course which were published by the author in German in 1988. A short overview of the content of the lecture course is given; the central role that Weierstras’s famous approximation theorem of 1885 played in it is emphasized. The paper uses archival material recently discovered at the Institut Mittag-Leffler in Djursholm.
Otto Blumenthals Tagebücher (1939-1943) aus Aachen und den Niederlanden vor seiner Deportation in die Nazi-Konzentrationslager
2012
Sets versus trial sequences, Hausdorff versus von Mises: “Pure” mathematics prevails in the foundations of probability around 1920
2010
Abstract The paper discusses the tension which occurred between the notions of set (with measure) and (trial-) sequence (or—to a certain degree—between nondenumerable and denumerable sets) when used in the foundations of probability theory around 1920. The main mathematical point was the logical need for measures in order to describe general nondiscrete distributions, which had been tentatively introduced before (1919) based on von Mises’s notion of the “Kollektiv.” In the background there was a tension between the standpoints of pure mathematics and “real world probability” (in the words of J.L. Doob) at the time. The discussion and publication in English translation (in Appendix ) of two …
A married couple of mathematicians from Vienna remembers Sigmund Freud (1953)
2023
Argument The paper is based on a hitherto unexplored document (audiotape of an interview accompanied by a German transcript) from 1953, located in the Freud Papers at the Library of Congress. It contributes to a better understanding of the impact of Freud and of Psychoanalysis on personalities from the exact sciences, here represented by the noted applied mathematicians Richard von Mises and Hilda Geiringer from Vienna. The detailed discussion of the interview sheds some new light on the different roles of Kraus and Freud in the Vienna culture, on the Vienna Jugendkulturbewegung (youth culture movement) during WWI in which Geiringer was involved, on Freud’s and Siegfried Bernfeld’s standing…
Applied Mathematics versus Fluid Dynamics
2018
This paper investigates scientific, institutional, and political conflict and collaboration between two different disciplines in the first part of the 20th century: applied mathematics and fluid dynamics. It argues for the catalytic role of Richard von Mises (1883–1953) in this process and analyzes the reasons for von Mises’s considerable fame in the former and limited posthumous reputation in the latter field. I argue that von Mises’s contributions to fluid dynamics and aerodynamics suffered chiefly from two somewhat interconnected deficiencies compared to the work of his principal competitors. There was, on the one hand, von Mises’s methodological preference for applied mathematics as opp…
“The first man on the street” - tracing a famous Hilbert quote (1900) back to Gergonne (1825)
2016
A short, catchy, and in its content somewhat exaggerated, quote allows us to draw a connection through three-quarters of a century between two leaders of mathematics who apparently held somewhat similar philosophical, pedagogical, and political views. In addition to providing some new facets to the biographies of Gergonne and Hilbert, our article relates to increasing demands for the dissemination of mathematical knowledge and to corresponding structural changes within mathematics during the 19th century.
„Die Gottesluft der freien Forschung“ – Jacobis Verhältnis zur französischen Mathematik aus politischer Sicht
2013
Published version of an article in the journal: Mitteilungen der Deutschen Mathematiker-Vereinigung (DMV)
The interplay of various Scandinavian mathematical journals (1859-1953) and the road towards internationalization
2018
Abstract The merger of various Nordic mathematical journals in 1953 into Mathematica Scandinavica (for research) and into Nordisk Matematisk Tidsskrift (for the more elementary topics, from 1979 NORMAT) confirmed increasing cooperation between matured Scandinavian mathematical communities. The merger originated from practical considerations including the wish to have a critical mass for economically viable publications. The present paper presents the basic steps in the development of several Scandinavian mathematical journals from 1859, the year of the foundation of the first general mathematical journal in a Scandinavian language, the Danish Mathematisk Tidsskrift, through various convergi…
Für die Ehre des menschlichen Geistes - Ein neuer Blick auf eine bekannte Kontroverse zwischen Fourier und Jacobi über die Rolle der Anwendungen der …
2013
Published version of an article from the journal: Mitteilungen der Deutschen Mathematiker-Vereinigung (DMV)
Richard von Mises’ work for ZAMM until his emigration in 1933 and glimpses of the later history of ZAMM
2020
Euclid’s Proof of the Infinitude of Primes: Distorted, Clarified, Made Obsolete, and Confirmed in Modern Mathematics
2014
Published version of an article in the journal: Mathematical Intelligencer. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00283-014-9506-9
From “Mixed” to “Applied” Mathematics: Tracing an important dimension of mathematics and its history
2013
Rockefeller Philanthropy and Mathematical Emigration between World Wars
2015
Published version of an article in the journal: The Mathematical Intelligencer. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00283-014-9530-9 This article discusses one aspect of Rockefeller support for mathematics: the emigration of mathematicians from Europe. For the broader policies of the Rockefeller philanthropies for internationalization of mathematics, see my monograph Siegmund-Schultze (2001), which together with other sources will be broadly used in the following and will be quoted as RI.
“The First Mathematically Serious German School of Applied Mathematics”?
2021
This chapter is about the famous German-Austrian applied mathematician Richard von Mises (1883–1953) and his school in Berlin in the 1920s. The paper focuses on his interactions and controversies with mathematicians at the Technische Hochschule (Higher Technical College) in Berlin, in particular Georg Hamel and Rudolf Rothe, who claimed priority for their institution in the training of applied mathematicians. Von Mises emphasized the special place and characteristics of his Institute for Applied mathematics at the classical University of Berlin between pure mathematics, engineering, and industry. In the appendix of the paper the main stipulations of the “Mathematical practical course (Prakt…
“Not in Possession of Any Weltanschauung”: Otto Neugebauer’s Flight from Nazi Germany and His Search for Objectivity in Mathematics, in Reviewing, an…
2016
Two major factors have to be considered to account for Neugebauer’s “Weltanschauung”, in particular his apparent or real rejection of philosophical or political judgments. On the one hand, Neugebauer, as a mathematician and a historian, had to cope, with the double character of mathematics as a science in its continuity and universality, independent of time, and of mathematics as a characteristic and fundamental product of each individual culture. On the other hand emphasis has to be put on Neugebauer being torn between organizational work (institution building, reviewing, editing) and historical research. One has to consider the vicissitudes of Neugebauer’s long and eventful life, which wa…
Another look at the two Egyptian pyramid volume ‘formulas’ of 1850 BCE
2022
Paid Open Access
“The joy that engineers and mathematicians have come together.” Richard von Mises’ foundation of ZAMM, and its “Tasks and Goals” (1920/21)
2020
The sine anecdote in Kovalevskaya’s memoirs; British Journal for the History of Mathematics
2022
In Sofya Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya’s memoirs there is a rather ambiguous story about how she came to understand trigonometric functions on her own as a teenager by reading the chapter on optics in Tyrtov’s elementary physics textbook. Furthermore, she claims that in so doing, she happened to follow ‘the same road that had been taken historically: that is, instead of a sine I used a chord’. We examine Tyrtov’s textbook in search of sources for such inspiration and quote hitherto unknown critical reactions to her autobiographical reflections by Kovalevskaya’s teacher I I Malevich. We conclude that Kovalevskaya’s memoirs may well be marred by personal interests and/or faltering memory. By adding…
Applied Mathematics versus Fluid Dynamics The Catalytic Role of Richard von Mises (1883–1953)
2018
This paper investigates scientific, institutional, and political conflict and collaboration between two different disciplines in the first part of the 20th century: applied mathematics and fluid dynamics. It argues for the catalytic role of Richard von Mises (1883–1953) in this process and analyzes the reasons for von Mises’s considerable fame in the former and limited posthumous reputation in the latter field. I argue that von Mises’s contributions to fluid dynamics and aerodynamics suffered chiefly from two somewhat interconnected deficiencies compared to the work of his principal competitors. There was, on the one hand, von Mises’s methodological preference for applied mathematics as opp…
On a missed opportunity for collaboration between historians and mathematicians: A biographical avalanche triggered by Professor Ioan James, FRS.
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