Mathematical Practitioners and the Transformation of Natural Knowledge in Early Modern Europe
(Springer, 2017)
SCI 333
This book argues that we can only understand transformations of nature studies in the Scientific Revolution if we take seriously the interaction between practitioners (those who know by doing) and scholars (those who know by thinking). These are not in opposition, however. Theory and practice are endpoints on a continuum, with some participants interested only in the practical, others only in the theoretical, and most in the murky intellectual and material world in between. It is this borderland where influence, appropriation, and collaboration have the potential to lead to new methods, new subjects of enquiry, and new social structures of natural philosophy and science.
The case for connection between theory and practice can be most persuasively drawn in the area of mathematics, which is the focus of this book. Practical mathematics was a growing field in early modern Europe and these essays are organized into three parts which contribute to the debate about the role of mathematical practice in the Scientific Revolution. First, they demonstrate the variability of the identity of practical mathematicians, and of the practices involved in their activities in early modern Europe. Second, readers are invited to consider what practical mathematics looked like and that although practical mathematical knowledge was transmitted and circulated in a wide variety of ways, participants were able to recognize them all as practical mathematics. Third, the authors show how differences and nuances in practical mathematics typically depended on the different contexts in which it was practiced: social, cultural, political, and economic particularities matter. Historians of science, especially those interested in the Scientific Revolution period and the history of mathematics will find this book and its ground-breaking approach of particular interest.
(Description Source: Springer)
Editors
Lesley B. Cormack is Deputy Vice Chancellor and Principal at the University of British Columbia (Okanagan). Before this, she was a Dean at the University of Alberta and at Simon Fraser University. She received her PhD from the University of Toronto in 1988 and taught at the University of Alberta in the Department of History and Classics for 17 years. She is a historian of early modern science, specializing in geography and mathematics in 16th-century England, and the author of Charting an Empire: Geography at the English Universities, 1580-1620 and co-editor with Andrew Ede of A History of Science in Society: A Reader.
Stephen A. Walton is a professor at Michigan Technological University.
John A. Schuster is a professor at the University of Sydney.
UBC Library Holdings
How to Purchase this Book
From the Publisher – Springer
From Used-book Sellers – ABE, Amazon, Antiqbook, Biblio, Vialibri
Hardcover ISBN: 9783319494296
Paper ISBN: 9783319841601
eBook ISBN: 9783319494302
UBC Okanagan Classroom Artwork Project
The University of British Columbia Okanagan Classroom Artwork Project aims to display academically inspiring artwork in classrooms and other teaching areas of the university.
Artwork displayed as part of this project – including the covers of books and journals containing work written or edited by UBCO scholars and researchers – is intended to help enliven university teaching spaces, educate classroom users about the connections between research and teaching, and introduce members of the broader public to some of the research and scholarship carried out at UBCO.
How to Submit Artwork
If you know of other book or journal covers, or other academically inspiring artwork that is connected to work carried out by UBCO artists, scholars or researchers and that is consistent with UBCO’s educational mission, please email your suggestions to classroom.artwork@ubc.ca.
The UBC Okanagan Classroom Artwork Project began in 2019 with support from the Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences. It is now a joint project of UBCO’s Faculties and the Office of the Provost.
Artwork and other images that are a part of this project are displayed solely for educational purposes.