Questions tagged [ho.history-overview]
History and philosophy of mathematics, biographies of mathematicians, mathematics education, recreational mathematics, communication of mathematics.
341 questions
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Widely accepted mathematical results that were later shown to be wrong?
Are there any examples in the history of mathematics of a mathematical proof that was initially reviewed and widely accepted as valid, only to be disproved a significant amount of time later, possibly ...
422
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23
answers
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Thinking and Explaining
How big a gap is there between how you think about mathematics and what you say to others? Do you say what you're thinking? Please give either personal examples of how your thoughts and words differ, ...
134
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Mathematical "urban legends"
When I was a young and impressionable graduate student at Princeton, we scared each other with the story of a Final Public Oral, where Jack Milnor was dragged in against his will to sit on a committee,...
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Similarities between Post's Problem and Cohen's Forcing
Remark: I have since learned that G.H. Moore addresses this question in the third reference listed at the end of this post, beginning on p. 157 in which he cites a letter from Kreisel to Gödel dated 4/...
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Who invented diagrammatic algebra?
There is a strong and growing trend to do mathematics via diagrammatic algebra, which involves constructing and manipulating equations whose elements are diagrams drawn in the plane. The manipulations ...
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Do you read the masters?
I often hear the advice, "Read the masters" (i.e., read old, classic texts by great mathematicians). But frankly, I have hardly ever followed it. What I am wondering is, is this a ...
25
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Fourier transform of the unit sphere
The Fourier transform of the volume form of the (n-1)-sphere in $\mathbf R^n$ is given by the well-known formula
$$
\int_{S^{n-1}}e^{i\langle\mathbf a,\mathbf u\rangle}d\sigma(\mathbf u) = (2\pi)^{\nu ...
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Famous mathematical quotes [closed]
Some famous quotes often give interesting insights into the vision of mathematics that certain mathematicians have. Which ones are you particularly fond of?
Standard community wiki rules apply: one ...
143
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What are some famous rejections of correct mathematics?
Dick Lipton has a blog post that motivated this question. He recalled the Stark-Heegner
Theorem: There are only a finite
number of imaginary quadratic fields
that have unique factorization. They
are $...
49
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11
answers
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In "splendid isolation"
While browsing the Net for some articles related to the history of the Whittaker-Shannon sampling theorem, so important to our digital world today, I came across this passage by H. D. Luke in The ...
175
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Endless controversy about the correctness of significant papers
In principle, a mathematical paper should be complete and correct. New statements should be supported by appropriate proofs. But this is only theory. Because we often cannot enter into the smallest ...
111
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The half-life of a theorem, or Arnold's principle at work
Suppose you prove a theorem, and then sleep well at night knowing that future generations will remember your name in conjunction with the great advance in human wisdom. In fact, sadly, it seems that ...
143
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6
answers
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What mistakes did the Italian algebraic geometers actually make?
It's "well-known" that the 19th century Italian school of algebraic geometry made great progress but also started to flounder due to lack of rigour, possibly in part due to the fact that foundations (...
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Pseudonyms of famous mathematicians
Many mathematicians know that Lewis Carroll was quite a good mathematician, who wrote about logic (paradoxes) and determinants. He found an expansion formula, which bears his real name (Charles ...
93
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Old books still used
It's a commonplace to state that while other sciences (like biology) may always need the newest books, we mathematicians also use to use older books. While this is a qualitative remark, I would like ...