Gösta Mittag-Leffler and Vito Volterra. 40 Years of Correspondence

Gösta Mittag-Leffler and Vito Volterra. 40 Years of Correspondence
Author: FREDERIC JAECK;LAURENT MAZLIAK;EMMA SALLENT DEL CO.
Publisher:
Total Pages: 438
Release: 2019
Genre:
ISBN: 9783037196991

The present book contains the voluminous correspondence exchanged between the Swedish mathematician Gösta Mittag-Leffler and his younger Italian colleague Vito Volterra spanning a period of almost forty years at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. The relationship between the two men is remarkable for both personal and scientific reasons. Mittag-Leffler met Volterra for the first time as a brilliant young student of Ulisse Dini in Pisa. He was soon captivated by the creativity and the skills of the young man, and eventually became his mentor. Being himself at the center of a major scientific network, Mittag-Leffler introduced Volterra to the major mathematicians of the time, especially the Germans (Weierstrass, Klein, Cantor...) and French (Darboux, Jordan...). In a few years, Volterra became the most prominent Italian mathematician and forged his own network of scientists all over Europe, and even in the United States which he was one of the first major European mathematicians to visit. Despite their difference in age, both men developed a deep and faithful friendship and their letters reflect the variety of themes of their exchanges. Of course, mathematics was the most prominent, and both men often used the letters as a first draft of their ideas and the addressee as a first judge of their soundness. Besides mathematics, they also touched upon many aspects of both private and public life: matrimony, children, holidays, politics and so on. This vast set of letters affords the reader a general overview of mathematical life at the turn of the 19th century and an appreciation of the European intellectual spirit which came to an end, or at least suffered a drastic turn, when the Great War broke out. Volterra and Mittag-Leffler's exchanges illustrate how general analysis, especially functional analysis, gained a dramatic momentum during those years, and how Volterra became one of the major leaders of the topic, opening the path for several fundamenta...

Mathematical Communities in the Reconstruction After the Great War 1918–1928

Mathematical Communities in the Reconstruction After the Great War 1918–1928
Author: Laurent Mazliak
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 373
Release: 2021-03-27
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3030616835

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.

Gösta Mittag-Leffler

Gösta Mittag-Leffler
Author: Arild Stubhaug
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 696
Release: 2010-08-03
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 3642116728

Gösta Mittag-Leffler (1846–1927) played a significant role as both a scientist and entrepreneur. Regarded as the father of Swedish mathematics, his influence extended far beyond his chosen field because of his extensive network of international contacts in science, business, and the arts. He was instrumental in seeing to it that Marie Curie was awarded the Nobel Prize twice. One of Mittag-Leffler’s major accomplishments was the founding of the journal Acta Mathematica , published by Institut Mittag-Leffler and Sweden’s Royal Academy of Sciences. Arild Stubhaug’s research for this monumental biography relied on a wealth of primary and secondary resources, including more than 30000 letters that are part of the Mittag-Leffler archives. Written in a lucid and compelling manner, the biography contains many hitherto unknown facts about Mittag-Leffler’s personal life and professional endeavors. It will be of great interest to both mathematicians and general readers interested in science and culture.

Mathematicians of the World, Unite!

Mathematicians of the World, Unite!
Author: Guillermo Curbera
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2009-02-23
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1439865124

This vividly illustrated history of the International Congress of Mathematicians- a meeting of mathematicians from around the world held roughly every four years- acts as a visual history of the 25 congresses held between 1897 and 2006, as well as a story of changes in the culture of mathematics over the past century. Because the congress is an int

Mathematics Unbound: The Evolution of an International Mathematical Research Community, 1800-1945

Mathematics Unbound: The Evolution of an International Mathematical Research Community, 1800-1945
Author: Karen Hunger Parshall
Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.
Total Pages: 430
Release: 2002
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0821821245

Although today's mathematical research community takes its international character very much for granted, this ``global nature'' is relatively recent, having evolved over a period of roughly 150 years-from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century. During this time, the practice of mathematics changed from being centered on a collection of disparate national communities to being characterized by an international group of scholars for whom thegoal of mathematical research and cooperation transcended national boundaries. Yet, the development of an international community was far from smooth and involved obstacles such as war, political upheaval, and national rivalries. Until now, this evolution has been largely overlooked by historians andmathematicians alike. This book addresses the issue by bringing together essays by twenty experts in the history of mathematics who have investigated the genesis of today's international mathematical community. This includes not only developments within component national mathematical communities, such as the growth of societies and journals, but also more wide-ranging political, philosophical, linguistic, and pedagogical issues. The resulting volume is essential reading for anyone interestedin the history of modern mathematics. It will be of interest to mathematicians, historians of mathematics, and historians of science in general.

Naming Infinity

Naming Infinity
Author: Loren Graham
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2009-03-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674032934

In 1913, Russian imperial marines stormed an Orthodox monastery at Mt. Athos, Greece, to haul off monks engaged in a dangerously heretical practice known as Name Worshipping. Exiled to remote Russian outposts, the monks and their mystical movement went underground. Ultimately, they came across Russian intellectuals who embraced Name Worshipping—and who would achieve one of the biggest mathematical breakthroughs of the twentieth century, going beyond recent French achievements. Loren Graham and Jean-Michel Kantor take us on an exciting mathematical mystery tour as they unravel a bizarre tale of political struggles, psychological crises, sexual complexities, and ethical dilemmas. At the core of this book is the contest between French and Russian mathematicians who sought new answers to one of the oldest puzzles in math: the nature of infinity. The French school chased rationalist solutions. The Russian mathematicians, notably Dmitri Egorov and Nikolai Luzin—who founded the famous Moscow School of Mathematics—were inspired by mystical insights attained during Name Worshipping. Their religious practice appears to have opened to them visions into the infinite—and led to the founding of descriptive set theory. The men and women of the leading French and Russian mathematical schools are central characters in this absorbing tale that could not be told until now. Naming Infinity is a poignant human interest story that raises provocative questions about science and religion, intuition and creativity.

An Episodic History of Mathematics

An Episodic History of Mathematics
Author: Steven G. Krantz
Publisher: MAA
Total Pages: 395
Release: 2010-04
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0883857669

A series of snapshots of the history of mathematics from ancient times to the twentieth century.

From Cardano's Great Art to Lagrange's Reflections

From Cardano's Great Art to Lagrange's Reflections
Author: Jacqueline A. Stedall
Publisher: European Mathematical Society
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2011
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 9783037190920

This book is an exploration of a claim made by Lagrange in the autumn of 1771 as he embarked upon his lengthy ``Reflexions sur la resolution algebrique des equations'': that there had been few advances in the algebraic solution of equations since the time of Cardano in the mid sixteenth century. That opinion has been shared by many later historians. The present study attempts to redress that view and to examine the intertwined developments in the theory of equations from Cardano to Lagrange. A similar historical exploration led Lagrange himself to insights that were to transform the entire nature and scope of algebra. Progress was not confined to any one country: at different times mathematicians in Italy, France, the Netherlands, England, Scotland, Russia, and Germany contributed to the discussion and to a gradual deepening of understanding. In particular, the national Academies of Berlin, St. Petersburg, and Paris in the eighteenth century were crucial in supporting informed mathematical communities and encouraging the wider dissemination of key ideas. This study therefore truly highlights the existence of a European mathematical heritage. The book is written in three parts. Part I offers an overview of the period from Cardano to Newton (1545 to 1707) and is arranged chronologically. Part II covers the period from Newton to Lagrange (1707 to 1771) and treats the material according to key themes. Part III is a brief account of the aftermath of the discoveries made in the 1770s. The book attempts throughout to capture the reality of mathematical discovery by inviting the reader to follow in the footsteps of the authors themselves, with as few changes as possible to the original notation and style of presentation.

The Mathematics of Sonya Kovalevskaya

The Mathematics of Sonya Kovalevskaya
Author: R. Cooke
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 264
Release: 1984-11-12
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780387960302

This book is the result of a decision taken in 1980 to begin studying the history of mathematics in the nineteenth century. I hoped by doing it to learn some thing of value about Kovalevskaya herself and about the mathematical world she inhabited. Having been trained as a mathematician, I also hoped to learn something about the proper approach to the history of the subject. The decision to begin the study with Kovalevskaya, apart from the intrinsic interest of Kovalevskaya herself, was primarily based upon the fact that the writing on her in English had been done by people who were interested in sociological and psychological aspects of her life. None of these writings discussed her mathematical work in much detail. This omission seemed to me a serious one in biographical studies of a woman whose primary significance was her mathematical work. In regard to both the content of nineteenth century mathematics and the nature of the history of mathematics I learned a great deal from writing this book. The attempt to put Kovalevskaya's work in historical context involved reading dozens of significant papers by great mathematicians. In many cases, I fear, the purport of these papers is better known to many of my readers than to me. If I persevered despite misgivings, my excuse is that this book is, after all, primarily about Kovalevskaya. If specialists in Euler, Cauchy, etc.