Mathematical Teachers in the Early Modern World: A Workshop
Note that the workshop will be in-person only. Participation is free of charge, but those wishing to attend are requested to register with the organizer, Benjamin Wardhaugh (benjamin.wardhaugh@history.ox.ac.uk).
How did mathematics acquire its present position of social and cultural importance? How did the European world of ideas move from the sixteenth-century vision of a closed set of ‘mixed sciences’ to the eighteenth century’s sense of mathematics’ almost unbounded usefulness and importance to economic wellbeing? How did specific regions, countries and populations experience that shift, and how did individuals actually acquire new knowledge and new attitudes about mathematics? These top-level questions about the social and cultural trajectory of mathematics are just some of the themes that will be explored in this workshop.
Programme
Thursday 17 December
Registration: from 9.30am.
10.00am Matthew Landrus (Wolfson College, Oxford)
Teaching applied mathematics at the end of the fifteenth century
10.45am Coffee
11.15am Stefano Gulizia (Università degli studi di Milano)
Euclid in Early Qing China: Translation, Accommodation, Teamwork
12.00 noon Will Poole (New College, Oxford)
Edmund Chilmead (1610–1654): between Ancient theory and Modern practice
12.45pm Lunch (not provided)
2.45pm Louisiane Ferlier (Royal Society)
An ‘enthusiastical’ teacher of mathematics: George Keith
(1639–1716)
3.30pm Tea
4.00–4.45pm Catherine Goldstein (CNRS, IMJ-PRG, SU, UPC)
Teaching Arithmetic in Early Modern France: Jacques de Billy and Jean Prestet
4.45–5.30pm Philip Beeley (University of Oxford)
Tall Ships, Tobacco, and the Clyde. The Greenock Teacher of Mathematics John Watt (1694-1737) and his Professional Milieus.
7.00 for 7.30pm Conference dinner (location TBC)
Friday 18 December
10.00am Benjamin Wardhaugh (University of Oxford)
Mathematics under the tuition of Elizabeth Beane
10.45am Coffee
11.15am Davide Crippa (Czech Academy of Sciences)
Teachers in Early Modern Padua: Giovanni Poleni Pubblico Professore di Matematica
12.00 noon Olivier Bruneau (Université de Lorraine and Archives Poincaré)
The different facets of Maclaurin as a teacher: Maclaurin, the multi-talented teacher
12.45pm Lunch (not provided)
2.45pm Philippe Schmid (Universität Basel)
Collecting the Teacher: Mathematical Textbooks and Early Modern Heritage Making
3.30pm Tea
4.00–4.45pm Rebekah Higgitt (National Museums Scotland)
Advertising, networks and patronage: the mathematical career of Andrew Mackay
The conference organisers are grateful for financial support from the AHRC (grant number UKRI4383) and for practical support from the staff of the Queen’s College and the Faculty of History, University of Oxford.