nt. Sci.

xxviii (1990)

DOES HISTORY OF SCIENCE TREAT OF THE HISTORY OF

SCIENCE? THE CASE OF MATHEMATICS

I. Grattan-Guinness
Middlesex Polytechnic
INTRODUCTION

By "History of Science" I refer to the (partly) professionalized activity of

today; "the history of science" means the record of what happened in the past
in science. The thesis of this paper is that mathematics has played a major role,
at times a dominating one, in the history of science; but by contrast, it is
normally ignored in History of Science. *
Of course skews and imbalances can be found all over History of Science:
some topics have been well remembered, others are patchily handled, and
many very neglected, so that the overall picture of the history of science
furnished by History of Science is rather distorted. But the case of mathematics is substantially different in degree from those obtaining in (parts of) the
other sciences, to a measure that deserves especial attention. Indeed, a
difference of kind will be suggested, with educational origins.
Note that both History of Mathematics and the history of mathematics are
to be distinguished from Mathematical History - that is, history within which
(maybe modem) mathematics is used as a research tool. (Cliometrics and
prosopography furnish good examples of this kind of activity, which tries,
among other things, to make History more 'scientific' .1) Thus if some (ancient
or modem) mathematical theories are applied to a piece of the history of
mathematics, then one will have mathematical History of Mathematics.
The first section of the paper outlines some features of History of Mathematics today, while the second discusses aspects of its (non-)relationship with
History of Science. The third section briefly notes some aspects of the place of
History of Mathematics among mathematicians and mathematical educators.
The fourth section takes a particular case study for all the general points just
made - mathematics in French science in the early nineteenth century - and
the conclusion is drawn that its role in the history of France is as prominent as
its recognition in French History is limited. A final section briefly draws the
I shall use the definite article in the phrase "the history of science": it appears together with
"History of Science" only in names of institutions. The same point applies also in the use of
"m(M)athematics".
0073-2753/90/2802-0149/$2.50 1990 Science History Publications Ltd

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I. GRATTAN-GUINNESS

same conclusion in general for History of Mathematics relative to History of

Science (and by implication for History in general).
1. THE PAST AND CURRENT STATE OF HISTORY OF 'MATHEMATICS'

History of Mathematics has experienced a curious and fluctuating history of

its own. Books and monographs on specific topics began to appear especially
in the eighteenth century; there were also a few general histories, especially E.
Montucla's Histoire des mathematiques (first edition 1758, second edition
completed by J. J. Lalande, 1799-1802). National histories were first published
in 1819 (for Portugal);' with G. Libri's Histoire des sciences mathematiques en
Italie of 1838-41 being the most substantial example.
The most distinguished period in the History of Mathematics occurred
between the late nineteenth century and the First World War, when the subject
received much attention, especially from German, Italian, central European
and Scandinavian historians and mathematicians. The major productions
were the numerous volumes of the Enzyklopiidie der mathematischen Wissenschaften (1898-1935), together with the published fragments of the projected
French edition;' long reports on specific topics published in the Jahresbericht
of the Deutsche Mathematiker-Veretnigung from its first volume (1890-91); a
remarkable series of monographs on educational questions produced for the
International Commission for Mathematical Education from the late 1900s, in
which historical topics were frequently treated; the journal Bullettino di
bibliografia e di storia delle scienze matematiche ofB. Boncompagni (1868-87),
followed by the Bollettino ... of G. Loria (1898-1917) and the Bibliotheca
mathematica (1884-1915) edited by G. Enestrom; the vast Vorlesungen iiber die
Geschichte der Mathematik written and later edited by M. Cantor between
1880 and 1908, which included in its last volume an interesting survey of
historical writings on mathematics;' the series of monographs entitled Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der mathematischen Wissenschaften (1877-1913), edited
by Cantor; the launch of the edition of the complete works of Euler, which
began to appear in 1911 and contained in several of its volumes valuable
mathematical studies by its editors; the Adam/Tannery edition of Descartes
and those of Lagrange, Laplace and Fourier (these latter three being very
poor); the beginnings of the editions for Cauchy (also poor) and Huygens;
important discoveries, editions and translations/editions of Greek mathematics by H. Zeuthen, T. L. Heath and others; and dozens of contributions to the
series of translations/editions in the series Ostwalds Klassiker der exakten
Wissenschaften, which started to be published in 1889.
However, after the War the subject fell for forty years into serious decline
(which is not to utter disrespect against those lonely souls who pursued their
interest despite the indifference); the journals Scripta mathematica and Quellen

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151

und Studien zur Geschichte der Mathematik were perhaps the most substantial
achievements.' An increase of activity was detectable from around 1960, as a
small part of the rise of History of Science in general; only since the mid-1970s
has the acceleration in interest been steady, but it is quite remarkable. In 1975 I
prepared a bibliographical article on History of Mathematics for a bibliographical volume on mathematics.s While a certain amount of recent work was
recorded, I relied quite heavily on the older literature. Should a revised version
be produced now, I would have to rework the piece completely, and produce a
much longer article.
Let me outline some of the principal current traits in the field. The Western
countries now manifesting the greatest activity are Italy and France, while
within the Communist block the Soviet Union and the German Democratic
Republic are the most significant. Some other countries which have a longer
tradition in the field, especially the German Federal Republic and the United
States of America, continue to maintain a reasonable level of work. A score of
others show signs of increasing interest; in countries such as Canada and
Australia it hardly existed before at all.
Collective as well as individual parameters can be isolated. Societies for the
field have been founded in Britain and Canada. Among journals, Istorikomatematicheskogo issledovaniya had started in the Soviet Union in 1948, and
Archive for history of exact sciences was launched in the USA in 1960.
Fourteen years later a journal specifically devoted to the field and its practice,
Historia mathematica, began to appear under the auspices of the Commission
for the History of Mathematics of the International Union for the History and
Philosophy of Science. This journal is the best source for general information
about the field, for in addition to research articles and book reviews it contains
reports of meetings, departments on archive sources and on current projects,
and a section of short abstracts of publications. During this decade further
journals or serials have made their bows in France (Cahiers d'histoire des
mathematiques de Toulouse and Cahiers du seminaire d'histoire des mathematiques), India (Ganita-Bharatit, Italy (Bollettino di storia delle scienze mathematiche) and Mexico (Mathesis); each of them is mainly devoted to research
articles and/or translations of older writings in the field.
Books are published by quite a variety of publishers; a book series in the
history of mathematics exists with Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, and another is
about to start with Mediterranean Press (Italy). In collaboration between
Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften (Berlin, DDR) and Birkhauser (who
have also recently begun a series of biographies of mathematicians), the series
"Science Networks" will include mathematics in its consideration of the
history of the exact sciences. This series is somewhat similar with one already
maintained by Springer. The American Mathematical Society has also begun a
series, and its London counterpart society is planning to join in. Among

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I. GRATTAN-GUINNESS

projects involving documents, the Deutsche Mathematiker- Vereinigung started

in 1985 a series of book-length editions of manuscripts.
A handful of presses specialize in reprinting classic works in mathematics,
and occasionally include an historical volume. Mathematics has a long
tradition of producing (good or bad) editions of the works for major figures,
and this production has increased in recent years; those for Newton, Euler and
the Bernoullis are prominent among older figures (the correspondence
volumes for the latter two editions are now a main concern), and various
nineteenth century mathematicians are currently being considered for such
treatment.
The Commission for the History of Mathematics, mentioned above, has
become one of the most active Commissions of the Union since its founding in
1971; recently it has been constituted jointly between that Union and the
International Mathematical Union. Under its auspices two substantial bibliographical volumes have appeared." At the recent XVIII International Congress of History of Science, held in the Federal Republic of Germany in
August 1989, the Commission organized many activities; they included four
day-long sessions, which were of good standard and were well attended.
Among more general literature, a series of five substantial volumes on the
history of science since around 1700 recently published in Italy devotes 700 of
its 3,200 pages to mathematics.s Again, a leading London publisher has
recently invited me to edit a very lengthy one-volume encyclopaedia of the
history and philosophy of mathematics, and another one has asked me for a
volume on the history of mathematics as part of a sequence of ten books on
the histories of various sciences. A dictionary of the subject is being edited by
J. Fauvel (Open University), designed for use at upper-school level.
Conferences in the history of mathematics are occurring with increasing
frequency, especially in France and Italy, and quite a few produce volumes of
proceedings." The senior such meeting takes place about every eighteen
months at the Mathematical Research Centre in the German Federal Republic, and attracts a rapidly increasing number of possible participants.
Among branches of mathematics, there is something of an imbalance in
favour of its pure sides, due to a modern conception which usually gives them
priority and then treats applications. (This process is noted in clause 7 of
Section 4 below.) But the history of probability and statistics has emerged
during this decade into the prominence that it deserves - very late, rather like
the lateness of its own development among the branches of mathematics.
There is also much more sensitivity to cultural, educational and institutional
aspects of mathematics; while the development of the subject outside Western
traditions has always been well recognized (and sometimes well studied).
All periods are receiving a good measure of attention: in particular, ancient

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153

Greek mathematics has recently undergone a number of interesting reinterpretations. A marked change has occurred in the amount of work devoted to
relatively modern mathematics. Textbooks and survey volumes written even
during the excellent period around 1900 described above either ignored the
mathematics of the nineteenth century or at most scampered through it in one
chapter, and the habit continued well into this century; as a result much of the
history of mathematics that related most closely to the mathematics practised
at the time was completely ignored. But at last this has stopped; indeed, the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries now receive perhaps the largest
measure of study, although the lacunae and imbalances concerning different
branches obtain there also.
Thus History of Mathematics has become invigorated in recent years, and it
seems that this process will continue. However, there is another side to the
story, which is the main subject of my paper - the large degree of ostracism
afforded to it by Historians of Science.
2. HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS AND HISTORY OF SCIENCE

The history of mathematics is essentially different from the history of the

other sciences in its relationship with the history of science, because it
never was an integral part of the latter in the Whewellian sense [of "the
sum of the histories of special sciences"]. The reason for this is obvious:
mathematics being far more esoteric than the other sciences, its history
can only be told to a select group of initiates.
George Sarton 10
One common factor runs through the metahistory related above: that only
very rarely has the history of mathematics been part of the concerns of
Historians of Science. The renaissance described above has not changed the
situation much; indeed, if anything it is now more marked. History of Science
is always imbalanced among the sciences-chemistry, biology and geology
are in, physics and astronomy only in parts, and technology and medicine
sometimes rather to one side - but the isolation of mathematics is of quite a
different order. It is given its due at most only in ancient and medieval science,
when the mathematics as such is often fairly elementary (although the
historical problems are, of course, formidably difficult). One main result is that
History of Mathematics is among the least developed branches of History of
Science, especially when assessed relative to the place of the history of
mathematics in the history of science.I I
Here are three recent examples of the ignoring of mathematics in History of
Science,of rather different kinds: they are chosen as being typical, not extreme.
The first example is the joint meeting in 1988 of the British Society of the

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I. GRATTAN-GUINNESS

History of Science and the History of Science Society (USA). There were
about ninety lectures, of which only two were mathematical in content.
The second example also relates to the American Society: the volume on the
origins of American sciences, published to inaugurate the second series of the
journal Osiris.t? All the main sciences were covered - except, of course,
mathematics, despite its presence in the history of American sciences and its
interesting features for Historians of Science (a rather late development (from
the 1890s on), various strong and different influences from German mathematics, the role of a company (Bell Telephones) in the rise of applied mathematics,
what more do you want, etc.)."
The last example is an article on marital collaborations in science. This very
nice piece takes examples out of the histories of physics and the life sciences;
but not even a passing mention is made ofW. H. and G. C. Young, the first
substantial collaboration in the history of mathematics, even though they
form an unusual case (she drew him into research, whereupon he revealed the
greater creative talent), there is a mass of manuscript material available
concerning the manner in which the collaboration was effected (even the
relationship between man and woman was explicitly discussed), and secondary
literature is available on their Iives.t"
I find the ignoring of mathematics especially strange in History of Physics: it
is one of the strongest areas of History of Science, and yet most of its many
talented practitioners will consider the pertaining mathematics only as far as
(say) quoting a formula without regarding it as an object of historical attention
as worthy as a physical law or as an experimental design. Only slightly less
puzzling is the situation in History of Technology, where the pertinent
mathematics is barely studied at all: in fact, this is the most neglected part of
History of Mathematics.
When concern is taken, phrases like "mathematicization" are thrown
around by some Historians of Science, but at least this reader is usually quite
uncertain which of dozens of markedly different intellectual processes are
under consideration, and how the historian will relate the process applying in
his given case to the variety of mathematical issues with which he is concerned.
Algebraising mechanics, interpreting the passage of light in terms of nonEuclidean geometry, analysing the flow of water in a canal, marking the daily
passages of the Moon on an ox horn with a sharp instrument, calculating the
path of a comet from observations, bringing statistical tests of significance into
medicine, developing a decent theory of capillary flow for use in aortic
regorgitation, analysing the flow of traffic in a large city, finding properties of
special functions in both real and complex variables for use in astronomy,
studying different formulations of recursion for computing, seeking predator/
prey models for biomathematics .... These and numerous other matters fall
quite legitimately under the rubric of "mathematicization", and between them

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155

they range, and have ranged, across much of the spectrum of scientific
thought. Calling them all "analytical formulas", to quote a favoured bavardage that I have seen several times, does not help at all.
It is self-delusive, therefore, to treat mathematicization as if it were a single
intellectual point, or to regard the assignment of mathematical (or non- or
anti-mathematical) attitudes in historical figures as any more than the most
preliminary appraisal. In the history of science mathematicization can straddle
the rainbow of methods used in science, and indeed has helped to form many
of them in the first place.
Why, then, should an obviously unsatisfactory state of affairs last for so
long, and why should Historians of Science find it a matter of so little concern?
A significant factor is mathsphobia among Historians; and an interesting
convolution of processes needs to be explained here. To work backwards:
1. Historians of Science, like most of the population, do not like mathematics, or at least find nothing particularly interesting or appealing in it. Note as
evidence the different social attitudes towards illiteracy and innumeracy: the
former causes deep embarrassment, but the latter is merely a minor nuisance
concerned with not being able to add up properly.
2. This distaste for mathematics comes principally from experience of the
subject at school, where it appeared to be boring and difficult (and may well
have been taught by a non-too-competent person).
3. This situation has lasted for a very long time, and so is itself subject to
historical study. Unfortunately the history of school mathematics is not a well
pursued branch of History of Mathematics, but it seems clear that misguided
philosophies about rigour, certainty and the primacy of foundations led to
corrigible decisions and policies about the choice of material to be taught and
the stages at which it should be introduced to students. An example will be
noted in the next section.
4. In a remarkable number of cases research work in mathematics has been
stimulated by a perceived educational need: the new theory appeared more in
textbooks and lecture notes than in ordinary papers. But even here the
educational policy could be highly questionable - the poor students were
being served research-level mathematics as if it were appropriate for teaching
at their level. An important example of both this and the previous point will be
mentioned in clause 13 of Section 4 below.
5. These decisions on curriculum are guided in significant part by ignorance
among the educators and policy makers of the history of mathematics. More
precisely, a certain distorted inheritance of knowledge is handed down - nonhistorically - and adopted without fundamental question.
6. Thus a vicious self-generating circle is initiated, with generations and
communities of mathematicians and educators practising their subject as if
they had created it all themselves, and remaining completely ignorant of its

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I. GRATTAN-GUINNESS

historical and cultural background - or even that it has such a background in

the first place.
3. THE MATHEMATICAL COMMUNITY AND HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS

Most of the clauses just put forward involve questions of mathematical

education in general. I am not principally concerned in this paper with the
relationship between mathematicians and the history and education of their
subject; but a few remarks on the matter would clearly be in order.
Several of the changes recorded in Section I have affected the community of
professional mathematicians; indeed, some of its members have pioneered a
proportion of them. New lecture courses in history are sometimes being
introduced into undergraduate courses, although they are usually given by
mathematicians with no historical background who often commit the cardinal
error of trying to cover all periods in the teaching time available. In Britain the
Open University has a course in History of Mathematics, for which a
"Reader" of primary and secondary literature has recently been published. IS
Evidence of increased concern is clear also in the mathematical literature, in
addition to the various books and journals mentioned in Section I. For
example, around the mid-I 970s substantial improvements were effected in the
(pathetic) sections for History of Mathematics in the two mathematics
abstracting journals (Zentralblatt fiir Mathematik and Mathematical reviews),
and a few general and even specialized journals in mathematics began to take
historical papers and/or introduce proper refereeing procedures for them. On
the documentary side, several of the departments of mathematics in the USA
began in the late 1970s to arrange the conservation of their archives, although
by 1983 the Director of the principal archival centre involved was regarding
the materials "as a peripheral item with peripheral interest"."
However, the overwhelming majority of the mathematical community has
not been touched by such changes. The following, if true, would make a fair
analogy with mathematicians: musicians have no idea whether Verdi lived
before, during or after the time of Wagner, have never heard a note of either
composer, and have no interest in doing so. Such a scenario may accurately
reflect some of the more lunatic ends of post-serialist musicians, who listen
back maybe as far back as the early tapes of Boulez; but in this analogy the
characterization is normal (in Kuhn's sense) for mathematicians.'? The extent
of this ignorance can be ludicrous: for example, various definitions and
theorems are named after mathematicians (often the wrong ones), and
textbook writers sometimes spell the names incorrectly anyway ("CaleyHamilton theorem", "Lebesque's theory of integration", and other sics).
The reasons lie, of course, in the educational and (non-)cultural processes
described at the end of the last section, except that this time the mathemati-

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157

cally talented minority of the school population master the mathematics but
are kept unaware (by, and like, their teachers) of the historical dimension.
Even those mathematicians who become somewhat interested in history
usually assert its importance only for trivial reasons of anecdote and general
heuristic without consideration of basic questions of historiography. Further
and more importantly, they usually view history as the record of a "royal road
to me" - that is, an account of how a particular modern theory arose out of
older theories instead of an account of those older theories in their own right.
In other words, they confound the question, "How did we get here?", with the
different question, "What happened in the past?"18
Such points could be made for Historians of other sciences, but the case of
mathematics is especially important, since there seems to be in mathematics a
greater element of constancy of concern: one can relate nowadays to a
mathematical work of the past in much greater detail than is normally possible
in chemistry, say, or surgery. (For example, the Greeks were preoccupied with
numbers and lines, and the motion of bodies; and so are we.) But I do not
thereby advocate a cumulation model for mathematics (any more than for any
other science): the history of mathematics has seen many major new ideas,
profound changes, new kinds of interpretation of known theories, even
'revolutions' (the over-use of this word is considered in clause 15 of Section 4),
so that the usual distortions and anachronisms in supposed historical accounts
are just as evident as with other sciences, maybe even more SO.19
There is a similar resistance among mathematics educators to drawing on
history as a basic source, even though it is rich beyond belief for their
purposes." Failure to do so, indeed, can lead to unfortunate consequences.
For example, the disaster of the 'new maths' of the 1960sexchanged one set of
shibboleths for an even less efficacious set (to use a noun associable with one of
its worst features). Even the chosen name of the movement manifested
historical ignorance; for most of the mathematics involved was then already
eighty years old! "New maths" to whom? Is Bernard Shaw new drama? This
development is a perfect example of an educational policy undertaken without
any serious attention paid to the history of the mathematics involved - not as
a means of providing material for educational strategies but as a source for
pondering the suitability of the curricula in the first place.
The modern renaissance in History of Mathematics owes much to reaction
against the traditions and attitudes to education just described. Many people I
know who work on the history of mathematics were motivated by a negative
reaction to their own educational experience in mathematics; either soon after
graduation, or else after a number of years of robotting their way through
lecture courses on their special topics. Their numbers have reached a size
adequate to sustain an International Study Group on the Relations between

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I. GRATTAN-GUINNESS

the History and Pedagogy of Mathematics, affiliated to the (current) International Commission on Mathematical Instruction.
But such people stand as exceptions to the rule; (partially) tolerated oddities
among their colleague mathematicians and educators, and out of sight to the
vast majority of their possible colleagues in History of Science." The general
failure of mathematics educators to draw upon historical material to enrich
their expertise is especially strange. In 1973 I discussed the matter in some
generality in a journal of mathematics education, but I aroused no response of
importance.F A decade later I edited the proceedings of a conference on the
use of history in mathematics education. They were eventually published
thanks to an initiative takenhy the French Society for the History of Science;
but before that, they had been turned down by thirteen publishers active in
mathematics education.> One publisher rejected them because the articles
failed to meet the standards required in that subject; the other twelve did so
because they could not sell the volume, even though conference funds were
available to pay for the typesetting. One of these twelve even asked if they
could keep the manuscript because the material was so interesting that one of
their "readers" wanted to use it ....
In other words, History of Mathematics is a classic example of a ghetto
subject: too mathematical for historians and too historical for mathematicians.> The creation of professional posts in History of Mathematics outside
socialist countries occurs very rarely, so that entry into the subject is
maximally discouraged: most of those who work in it are employed as
mathematicians in Mathematics departments.> with some in Education
departments and a tiny minority of departments of Philosophy, History, and
even History of Science. My main explanation for this sad state of affairs that
the subject is too technical (and maybe fearful) for historians even to attempt
to master it, and also profoundly subversive to mathematicians' understanding of mathematics (for example, the (non?-)importance of their own research)
and to the stances adopted by educators; therefore it has to be ignored by
everybody, for different reasons.
4. A CASE STUDY: MATHEMATICS IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE DURING THE
FRENCH REVOLUTION AND RESTORATION

I take now my example of what Historians (of Science) are missing out of the
history (of science) when the mathematical aspects are ignored. The case study
comes out of my own work, but that is incidental to my thesis: the case is of
general historical interest and of course I know it fairly well, but if other
examples were presented, then the same moral would be conveyed - of major
aspects of the history of a science being ignored by its Historians. I have found
it preferable to deal with this one case in some detail rather than rapidly survey

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159

a handful of different ones; for then the kind of chatter mentioned in Section 2
could not be avoided.
French Historians (that is, those who study the history of France) have been
fascinated with the Revolution of 1789 ever since it occurred, and the libraries
are stacked with kilogrammes of scholarship on all aspects of the Revolutionary and First Imperial period. Or are they? The history of the science of the
time has only recently, and partially, entered into the concerns of French
Historians (and for most of the latter the nasty technical details are better left
out); but the mathematics of the period seems to be regarded as irrelevant to
French History.
The history of France for that period discloses quite the opposite situation.
During the first thirty years of the nineteenth century the subject was given
very high status at both the educational and research levels, and a remarkable
cohort of mathematicians worked in the country (mostly in Paris). Across four
generations over thirty major figures can be specified, together with a score of
more minor but interesting workers. By contrast, until the early 1820s only a
handful of mathematicians of comparable quality are locatable throughout
the rest of the world. This dominance obtained not only with respect to
individuals, for initiatives were taken to form institutions for education and
practice in science of a type and on a scale which no other country attempted.
Indeed, almost all the younger members of the cohort were the products of the
new system, with the older members as their teachers; in their turn the majority
of them became teachers and policy-makers for the succeeding generations.
I have written a large three-volume study of this community for the period
1800--40, which is due to be published in 1990.26 I concentrated upon the
institutional and educational innovations, and regarding research I examined
the principal concern of the time, which lay in the development and application of the calculus. This topic and its related subjects (series and functions,
and the theory of equations) were greatly extended, to a considerable degree
by problems posed by solutions of differential equations. In addition, it
became subsumed under an integrated discipline which we call 'mathematical
analysis', which was itself grounded in a greatly improved version of the
theory of limits. The main area of application of the calculus, mechanics, was
also vastly extended across all its areas (mathematical astronomy, planetary
mechanics, engineering mechanics, corporeal mechanics (including foundational questions), and some molecular mechanics): energy principles and elasticity theory received the most substantial modifications. In addition, mechanics
was broadened into (the initial elements of) mathematical physics with the
partial mathematicization of heat theory, physical optics, and electricity and
magnetism (including their connection in electromagnetism).
Here are the bare outlines of some of the main conclusions which I have
drawn from this study and which bear upon the history of France. All of them

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I. GRATTAN-GUINNESS

are based on detailed consideration of mathematics along the lines of the

desiderata urged in the previous two sections, and many of them explicitly
involve distinctions made there. Several involve parts of the history of France
which have not been studied this century, and some have never been examined
since they happened, despite their importance at the time." There is no space
here to provide the evidence upon which the conclusions are based, for it is
very extensive and complex in character. Some of it exists only in manuscript,
in various archival sources upon which I have drawn.
The points made roughly follow the order: educational institutions; professional institutions; the community; mechanics and mathematical physics;
engineering mechanics; mathematical analysis; and finally some general considerations for the history of French science. The members of the community
are named in clause 6, where a major point is made about it; a few individuals
are named earlier.
(1) Among the various educational institutions the best known is the Ecole
Polytechnique, which was founded in 1794 as a general preparatory school for
the training of students in public works and military engineering. Despite
many early difficulties, it quickly gained a high reputation, and even was
imitated in other countries. Distinguished savants of the time were appointed
as teachers or examiners, and most of the later generations of major figures
were students there. From the start, mathematics was the principal subject
taught (for better or worse).
However, three difficulties and tensions troubled its development. Firstly,
there were disputes of policy over whether the curricula were to be tailored
basically for the needs of engineering, or whether the more general and even
theoretical branches of the sciences taught should be preferred. Over the years
the latter view prevailed, and Laplace triumphed over Monge. Again, there
were rivalries over balance between training for public works and for the
military, not only in the school but also in the pertaining ministries. Finally,
there was a mismatch between its status and its purpose: for while it became so
highly regarded, it still remained as an elementary institution for instruction;
for example, research was not part of its brief.
(2) After graduation the polytechnicien normally passed on to a specialist
engineering school, called an Ecole d'application. A network of around ten of
them were developed within a decade, most of them based outside Paris. In
contrast to the fame of the Ecole Polytechnique, these schools have been little
studied (the Ecole des Mines in Paris has received most attention); but in this
story a considerable role has to be assigned to the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees
in Paris and to the military school at Metz. Only in the last years has the
former school received substantial study," while the Metz school remains
completely unknown. Some Historians of French education do not even notice

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161

the existence of the network of schools at all, even if they mention a member
school!"
(3) In the late 1800s Napoleon decreed that the Universite Imperiale be set
up. Its name is somewhat misleading, and indeed has misled French historians;
it was an Empire-wide institution to control school-level teaching, at all levels.
At its top end there were Facultes, set up in Paris and in certain provincial
cities; and some of these were designated to science (excluding medicine, which
had a few Facultes of its own). But the Universite was a second-class
institution relative to the schools just described; the later phrase "grandes
eccles" refers to many of them. Even its elite school, the Ecole Normale, was
disappointing for science teaching until the 1830s (when, interestingly, mathematics was the first science to develop effectively"). Further, for some reason
the College de France in Paris, which normally ran high-level courses, was
content until the 1840s to give only rather elementary instruction in
mathematics.
(4) The most desired reward in the career of a savant was election to the
Academic des Sciences. This institution was closed between 1793 and the
Restoration of 1816, and from 1795 it was replaced by the first classe of the
overall Institut de France. More specifically, it was called the classe for
"mathematical and physical sciences". These two adjectives were not used in
the senses which we now adopt, for the division of "mathematics" included
not only mathematics but also physics(!), engineering and astronomy; the
"physical" division covered chemistry, natural history, botany, medicine and
related sciences. The distinction reflected a long-standing demarcation
between sciences in which mathematics was prominent and those where
experiments played a major role: a revised version of the distinction, which has
to apply after 1800 because of the achievements of this community, will be
presented in clause 9.
The pre-eminence of mathematics in the science of the time is perfectly
expressed in the organization of the classe. The four sections of the "mathematics" division came in order before the six "physical" ones. The first two
Presidents of the classe were Lagrange and Laplace, and many other mathematicians filled the post later. From 1803 two important posts of secretaires
perpetuels were created, that for mathematics being filled by the astronomer
Delambre; but thereafter it was often filled by a mathematician." The
prominence of mathematics has remained evident until today, when France
remains a country of importance for mathematics out of all proportion to its
population.
(5) It is well known that French science in general was often marked by
personal competition, priority disputes, accusations of plagiarism, and suchlike behaviour. However, there is a contrasting side when one considers
institutions, both the educational ones just noted and the various professional

162'

I. GRATTAN-GUINNESS

TABLE

I. Principal mathematicians in the period 1800-1830, divided by research interests.

Calculus/Mechanics/Engineering
C. S. J. Bossut (1730-1814)
L. Carnot (1753-1823)
B. P. E. Clapeyron (1797-1864)
C. P. M. Combes (1801-1872)
G. G. Coriolis (1792-1843)
J. B. J. Delambre (1749-1822)
F. P. C. Dupin (1784-1873)
L. B. Franceeur (1773-1849)

P. S. Girard (1765--1836)
J. N. P. Hachette (1769-1834)
G. Monge (1746--1818)
A. J. Morin (1795--1880)
C. L. M. H. Navier (1785--1836)
T. Olivier (1793-1853)
J. V. Poncelet (1788-1867)
G. Riche de Prony (1755-1839)
L. Puissant (1769- I 843)

Mathematical Analysis/physics
A. M. Ampere (1775--1836)
J. P. M. Binet (1786--1856)
J. B. Biot (1774-1862)
A. L. Cauchy (1789-1857)
J. M. C. Duhamel (1797-1872)
J. B. J. Fourier (1768-1830)
A. J. Fresnel (1788-1827)
S. Germain (1776--1831)
J. L. Lagrange (1736--1813)
G. Lame (1795-1870)
P. S. Laplace (1749-1827)
A. M. Legendre (1785-1833)
E. L. Malus (1775-1812)
L. Poinsot (1777-1859)
S. D. Poisson (1781-1840)
P. G.le D. de Pontecoulant (1795--1874)
C. Sturm (1803-1855)

bodies such as the classe of the Institut or the Academie des Sciences, the
Bureau des Longitudes, the Depot Generale de la Guerre (a large and
important institution concerned with cartography and surveying, now mainly
forgotten"), the army and navy, and so on. Here lack of competition is the
dominant feature, in the sense that each of them was assigned to its particular
role: the Ecole Polytechnique was unique in its preparatory role; the ecoles
d'application were each assigned to their respective areas (although there was
some duplication and overlap among the military ones); the classe or the
Academic was the one and only summit of professional recognition; and so on.
Thus the competition was inter-personal, or within an institution; by and
large, inter-institutional rivalry was avoided.
(6) The community of scientists with whom I am concerned divide in their
intellectual interest into two groups of equal size. (From other points of view,
such as modes of employment or personal friendship, the division does not
necessarily hold.) One group was occupied largely with the concerns of
engineering mechanics, and the attendant mathematics; the other group
usually preferred the more general and theoretical applications and also 'pure'
mathematics, and were almost entirely responsible for the broadenings of the
calculus and mechanics mentioned above.
Table I gives the names and dates of these figures. Excluded are the
textbook writer S. F. Lacroix, for he produced no research (his interests lay
mainly with the second group); and D. F. J. Arago, whose research work
involved very little mathematics, although he was quite competent in it and
taught a remarkable variety of mathematics courses at the Ecole
Polytechnique.
(7) From now on I shall use the acronyms suggested by Table I to refer to

THE CASE OF MATHEMATICS

163

the "CME" and "MAP" groups. In some ways the MAP group gained
prestige over their colleagues in the CME group. For example (and it was an
important one), they were usually elected to the classe of the Institut or the
Academic at earlier ages, thus giving them both the high status of the
appointment and the considerable lines of pertaining influence and prestige. It
seems that being a knowledgeable and practising engineer was a disadvantage;
for he might be sent out to use his knowledge on, say, a harbour design in
Marseille, instead of sitting in Paris and writing down clever sums.
(8) A similar difference of prestige can be detected at the educational level.
There are indications that the increase of professionalization - which meant
especially teaching posts at the various schools and Facultes - correlated
positively with the rise of pure over applied mathematics, and of the more
general applied areas over their practical counterparts. The process seems to
have been pretty international: it is evident in other countries at that time, and
accelerated strongly later in the century with the rise of Prussian mathematics.
It is still with us today, everywhere.
(9) As is well known among historians of science and was mentioned in
clause 4, up to 1800 there was a pretty sharp distinction between the so-called
'classical' sciences such as mechanics (including fluid mechanics), astronomy
and geometrical optics, in which mathematics played a significant role; and
their 'Baconian' counterparts such as electricity and magnetism, and physical
optics, where mathematics was largely absent but experimentation
prominent. 33
Clearly, after 1800 this division no longer applied; and the achievements of
the two groups indicates the alternative picture that should obtain, not only
for France at this time but also for the history of all applied mathematics after
1800. The CME group worked in classical sciences and brought experimentation to bear upon their concerns: the MAP group mathematicized in both
types of science but by and large were not so concerned with experiments (and
many of them had little or no experimental ability)."
Figure 1 represents both the old and the new scheme in a diagrammatic
manner: the thin lines mark the traditional connections, while the thicker lines
show the new ones. In addition, the conception of applied mathematics often
differed for members of each group;" in particular, the MAP boys usually
looked for general properties while their CME colleagues gave high priority to
numbers-inJnumbers-out mathematics.
(10) One of the best-known features of French science of this time is the
programme of mathematicized molecularism proposed around 1804 by Laplace, which flourished for about a decade and produced important results in
several areas of physics, especially heat theory and physical optics." There was
a positive correlation between this decline and the rise of mathematical

164

I. GRATTAN-GUINNESS

Classical
sciences

Mathematics

FIG.

\
L

MAP group
interests

CME group
interests

Baconian
sciences

Experiments

I. Representation of the traditional and the new connections.

physics, for none of the principal pioneers (Fourier, Fresnel, Ampere, Germain, Navier, Cauchy, Coriolis, Poncelet) followed his methods.
However, none of them deliberately adopted an anti-Laplacian stance;"
lines of positive influence came to them from other sources. Further, there was
no unity in the spectrum of mathematical physics: the new figures differed not
only from Laplace but also from each other, on both mathematical and
physical issues. Ampere, Cauchy and Fresnel were aetherians, but the others
were discinclined to talk this way. Cauchy, Fourier and Navier worked out
from differential equations, but Fresnel, Coriolis and Poncelet used forms of
energy mechanics and Fresnel and Ampere drew heavily on the decomposition
law of forces. Fresnel and Navier were happy to talk of their theories as
hypotheses, whereas the others seemed to think that they were finding truths of
nature.
(II) The mathematics of this time is distinguished by competing modes of
thinking and proof-method. Three were prominent: the algebraic, where
general formulae were presented and manipulated explicitly without appeal to
geometrical configurations: the geometrical, where on the contrary the configuration of the case was to be envisaged and used in the development of
theory: and the analytical, in the sense of Cauchy's mathematical analysis
described above, where limits replaced other foundational procedures. None
of these methods is necessarily to be associated with the branches of mathematics known as algebra, geometry or analysis, although there could be such
links (especially in the third case).
The new areas of mathematical physics, and most of the new developments
within mechanics itself, were almost entirely guided by geometrical formulations, although the theories as such were presented in calculus and/or algebraic
terms. The reason was that, by definition, new results were being obtained, and
so the particular situation would require explicit (and thereby geometrical)

THE CASE OF MATHEMATICS

165

presentation. In these areas of mathematics reworkings and systematizations

are made later - the antecedents of modern axiomatization - and then the
algebraic tools of variational calculus, and so on, are very powerful. Prior
to 1800 mechanics had been heavily influenced by Lagrange's algebraic
approach; and there is also a positive correlation between the rise of energy
mechanics and the falling away of his methods.
(12) This energy mechanics, initiated by Carnot already in the 1780s,
pursued by Navier from the 1810s and brought to full form by Coriolis and
Poncelet in the late 1820s, is a remarkable example of engineering influencing
science." It was inspired largely by friction studies, and by the analysis of the
operation of machines, especially waterwheels and turbines. Since it considered the conversion between kinetic energy and work (this latter word was
introduced by Coriolis, incidentally), it also drew some stimulus from ergonomics, and in its turn was applied back to that area (especially by Dupin), as a
consequence of growing industrialization in France.
All these figures explicitly followed empiricist interpretations of mechanics.
It must have influenced A. Comte, who began to preach his form of positivist
philosophy from the time when Coriolis and Poncelet published their first
main works. For some reason which I have not been able to divine (perhaps
the petty Parisian atmosphere again), he did not discuss these antecedents at
all, although he must of known of their work (in particular, he and Coriolis
were both teaching at the Ecole Polytechnique at that time). His successors
and historians have not discovered this piece of history; so the origins of
positivism, and also parts of sociology (which Comte called "social physics" at
that time"), in engineering and technology is a feature of the period which
seems to be unknown among French Historians.
(13) Associated with each of the modes of reasoning and proof was a
particular way of prosecuting the calculus. The algebraic form, of which
Lagrange was the principal exponent, was founded on a belief that a
mathematical function fix + h) could always be expanded in the form of a
power series in h for all except the odd exceptional value of its argument
variable x, and that its derivatives with respect to x were then defined from the
coefficients of the powers of h. The geometrical mode worked with the
tradition from Leibniz and Euler of treating infinitesimal increments {dx} on
the variables {x} of the problem. Cauchy's new mathematical analysis gave a
new definition of the derivative, as the limiting value (if it existed) of the ratio
[/(x

h) - f(x)]jh

as h passed to zero. Each of these theories had a companion, but mutually

different, definition of the integral.
As part of the dominance of geometrical modes in the discovery of new
results, when any calculus was required at all the differential form was almost

166

I. GRATTAN-GUINNESS

always the one used. The algebraic form served important but restricted
uses, especially concerning the reformulation and systematization of results
already found; it lost reputation, especially when Cauchy found counterexamples in 1822 to its assumption that any function could be expanded in a
power series. As for Cauchy'S own new theory, it certainly raised the level of
rigour for the calculus but was less tractable than the differential form and also
hard for the students to understand. He developed it, and various related
theories, when teaching at the Ecole Polytechnique - indeed, it is an outstandingly important example of the point made in Section 3 above of
mathematics being influenced by education - but the reception both among
students and staff was very.negative, and strong requests were made that his
methods should be simplified, and even that the differential form be restored."
Cauchy responded but little, and his approach became the normal manner of
presenting mathematical analysis (including the calculus) from that day down
to this (now in more refined versions). Thus today's teachers face the same
educational difficulties and criticisms as did Cauchy himself. Given the major
importance of the calculus, his theory must be a significant source of the
mathsphobia mentioned as point 3 of Section 2 (at this rather more advanced
level). The historical roots of current problems in education are sometimes
very long.
(14) The main institutional changes were effected between 1795 and the late
l800s; but the principal intellectual changes took place largely between 1815
and 1827.4 1 Thus there was a retardation ofabout a generation between the two
sets ofprocesses. The latter coincides with the Restoration period, after the fall
of Napoleon; but the political changes played only marginal roles in the
intellectual ones.
(15) None of these major changes occurred as the result of a major
onslaught on an existing body of theory in the area involved. Rather, the new
theories developed more gradually, often starting out from specific cases:
Fourier with a (defective) n-body model of heat diffusion, Fresnel on diffraction theory, Cauchy in analysis pondering the legitimacy of using V -1 in the
evaluation of integrals, and so on. In cases where little or no previous theory
was available, simple and elementary cases were taken first, and gradual
desimplifications introduced later: Fourier's discrete model (then an oldfashioned mathematical technique of his time, incidentally), only changing
later to continuous bodies expressed in the terms of the differential calculus; or
Ampere's first mathematicization of electrodynamics using straight infinitesimal wires and then curved ones, and eventually full wire-to-wire actions in
terms of contour integrals. The case which comes closest to the fundamental
insight is Cauchy's rethinking of elasticity theory, where (partly under the
inspiration of Fresnel's theory of double refraction and in reaction against a
model used by Navier which always assumed normal resultants) he conceived

THE CASE OF MATHEMATICS

167

of what we now call the 'stress/strain' model for a wide class of substances; but
even there the justification of his approach came only from his detailed
investigation of many specific examples.
All the major changes occurring in this period suggest that the question of
'revolutions' in science could be better considered if viewed as convoluting
evolutions of ideas from simple or specific cases to more general theories, with
traditional techniques borrowed from the previous work done in the field in
question, or from other areas. Further, the eventual 'revolution' may itself be
an unexpected consequence of initial ideas developed in those specific contexts
(such as Fourier's first solution of the equation of heat diffusion by his
trigonometric series; or Cauchy's pondering upon V - I leading to a major
new branch of mathematics, namely complex-variable functions and their
residue integrals).
(16) One of the best-known features of French science of this time is that it
declined noticeably after 1830, and some French Historians have sought
explanations for this process." Needless to say, none of the mathematics of the
time is taken into serious consideration; but when this is done considerable
doubts about the supposed decline come to mind. For example, the engineering mechanics noted in clauses II and 12 reveals a considerable improvement in
both quality and quantity of activity; and the new generation among those
named in Table I, together with other new figures of the 1830sand early I840s,
such as A. J. C. Barre de Saint-Venant, M. Chasles, J. Liouville, J. Bertrand,
C. Hermite, U. J. J. Leverrier, C. E. Delauney and V. Puiseux, form a
distinguished new assemblage by any standards.
Much of the so-called decline is surely an optical illusion caused by the rise
of mathematics in other countries, which happened very quickly during the
I820s (a similar point can also be made for other sciences). Again, the further
developments of the new theories were by definition less spectacular than these
initial essays, but they still required considerable talent and genius of its
practitioners.
Without doubt some aspects of decline occurred: for example, the Ecole
Polytechnique was becoming ossified in its syllabi and instruction, and already
by the late 1810s it had slowed up in its production of important research
figures (which of course was not its principal purpose). The history of the
declinist story seems to be that around mid-century such elements of decline
were seized on by the educational community in France as a lever to improve
the current levels of funding and staffing; and succeeding generations of
Historians took up the story of decline in an uncritical- one might say,
unhistorical- spirit." In this and other respects a considerable element of
revision seems to be needed to bring French History closer to the history of
France.

168

I. GRATTAN-GUINNESS

5. CONCLUDING REMARKS

The last sentence above can be generalized without much exception. Every
Historian knows that there are imbalances and lacunae in almost all areas and
regions of his discipline. But the case of mathematics is different in degree and,
I suggest, even of kind. Within history the history of ideas has been a very
significant component. Within the history of ideas science has often played a
prominent and even dominating role, influencing (for better or worse) the
development of other parts of human activity. Within science the physical
sciences have often been given preference (especially after the rise of physics
among the sciences, which incidentally is another aspect of French science in
the early nineteenth century). -Within the physical sciences mathematics has
often been a leading realm - and a vast and varied realm it has been, with a
wide spectrum of aims, methods, epistemologies and techniques, frequently in
competition with each other. So in its historical development mathematics is
somewhere near the summit of a summit of a summit of knowledge.
By contrast, History of Mathematics is one of the least recognized or
discussed branches of History of Science, which is itself still rather separated
from the profession of History in general: thus it lies at the very outermost
margins of the community of Historians. To take the case study which I have
summarized in the last section as an example (and, as was mentioned at the
beginning of that section, I do not doubt that it is a typical one), I have worked
on that period for over 20 years, but never once in that time have I had an
enquiry, or a question or even an offprint request, from a pukka French
Historian.
That historical episode contains many excellent and important examples of
all the points made in the earlier sections of this paper; but my general thesis
does not in the slightest depend upon it. Mathematics is as ancient, and as
varied in its content and methods, as any other branch of knowledge and more
so than most of them; it has been extraordinarily pervasive in its influence,
especially upon science but also upon most areas of human activity. As time
advances, and recent periods become more historical, then the increasing
presence of mathematics will render its neglect still more absurd. Historians
(of Science) should take it very seriously in many areas of their subject if they
aspire to study the history (of science). May there be many more of them like
George Sarton. My bets are hedged.
REFERENCES
I. For a good survey of c1iometrics see R. W. Fogel, .. 'Scientific' history and traditional
history", in Logic, methodology and philosophy of science VI (Hannover 1979) (Amsterdam, 1982), 15-61.
2. This little known work is F. de B. Garcao-Stockler, Ensaio historico sobre a origiem e

THE CASE OF MATHEMA TICS

3.

4.
5.

6.
7.

8.
9.

10.
I I.

12.
13.
14.

15.
16.
17.

169

progressos das matematicas em Portugal (Paris [sic!), 1819); L. Saraiva (Lisbon) is

studying its interesting author. Histories of various nations (for example, Italy), had
already included discussions of pertinent developments in mathematics.
In a beautiful example of national characteristics, moves for an English edition were rejected
out of hand in Britain, even though some British mathematicians had contributed to the
German edition.
See S. Gunther, "Geschichte der Mathematik", in M. Cantor (ed.), Vorlesungen iiber
Geschichte der Mathematik, iv (Leipzig, 1908), 1-36.
These figures include the remarkable George Sarton, who published two bibliographical
guides on the history of mathematics (from which the quotation at the head of Section 2
below is taken) and on the history of science respectively: The study 0/ the history 0/
mathematics and The study 0/ the history 0/ science (both Cambridge, Mass., 1936;
volumes reprinted as one, New York, 1957). His journals Isis and Osiris took papers on
the history of mathematics from time to time. He even taught a course in the history of
mathematics at Harvard University, according to A. Sayili, "George Sarton and the
history of science", Turk tarih kurumu belleten, xlvii (1983, pb. 1984),499-525, p. 503.
See my "History of mathematics", in A. Dorling (ed.), Use ofmathematics literature (London,
1977), 60-77.
See K. O. May (ed.), Bibliography and research manual 0/ the history ofmathematics (Toronto,
1973); and J. W. Dauben (ed.), The history ofmathematics from Antiquity to the present:
A selective bibliography (New York, 1984).
See U. Bottazzini's contributions to P. Rossi (ed.), Storia della scienza moderna e contemporanea (5 vols, Turin, 1988), passim.
An excellent example of the increase in the recent quality of work on mathematics since 1800
is provided by comparing conference proceedings: G. D. Birkhoff (ed.), "Proceedings of
the American Academy Workshop on the evolution of modern mathematics ...", Historia
mathematica, ii (1975), 425--615 with D. Rowe and J. McCleary (eds), History ofmodern
mathematics (2 vols, New York, 1989).
Sarton, Mathematics (ref. 5), 4,3.
As an example of the development of History of Mathematics relative to Histories of accepted
sciences, comparison of the section of abstracts in Historia mathematica with the
quarterly Current work in the history 0/ medicine suggests that work in the latter area is
the larger by between fifteen and twenty times.
See S. G. Kohlstedt and M. W. Rossiter (eds), Historical writing on American science
(Philadelphia, 1985).
D. Rowe and K. Hunger Parshall are currently completing a volume on the history of
American mathematics.
See M. B. Ogilvie, "Marital collaboration: An approach to science", in P. G. Abir-Am and D.
Outram (eds), Uneasy careers and intimate lives (New Brunswick and London, 1987),
104-25. On the Youngs, see principally my "A mathematical union: William Henry and
Grace Chisholm Young", Annals 0/ science, xxix (1972), 105-86; their Nachlass is in the
Archives of Liverpool University.
See J. Fauvel and J. J. Gray (eds), The history a/mathematics: A reader (London, 1987).
See G. Kolata, "Math archive in disarray", Science, ccx (1983), 940.
If this sounds to be an extreme construal, let me recall an occasion in 1970 when I was allowed
to examine the (totally disordered) archives of the Institut Mittag-Leffler, a mathematics
research institute in the suburbs of Sweden. In the course of finding materials relating to
my own concerns, I came across mounds of completely unknown manuscripts for a
major figure of the nineteenth century, and smaller collections for several other such
figures (see my "Materials for the history of mathematics in the Institut Mittag-Leffler",

170

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.
24.

I. GRATTAN-GUINNESS

Isis, Ixii (1971), 363-74), but was quite unable to arouse the interest of the director in
them. By coincidence, just at that time the discovery of some rather trivial materials of
Jane Austen was greatly exciting the literary and historical world.
The difference between these two questions is discussed in the general context of historiography in my "What do theories talk about? A critique of Popperian fallibilism, with
especial reference to ontology", Fundamenta scientiae, vii (1986),177-221, esp. sect. 10.
As an issue, it is underrated by historians and philosophers in general.
The extent to which mathematicians' conception of history affects their historical work is very
profound: here are two examples, involving eminent mathematicians.
Some of the individual articles in J. Dieudonne (ed.), Abrege d'histoire des mathematiques 1700-1900 (2 vols, Paris, 1978) are very good; but the book is conceived to reflect a
certain modernist conception of mathematics, so that about eighty per cent of the subject
developed during the period in question is omitted entirely!! No articles are devoted to
mechanics or the various branches of mathematical physics, although for most of the
period they were the principal concern. Further, the differences between the two centuries
arising from the vast increase in professionalization after 1800 are barely recorded. See
my review in Annals of science, xxxvi (1979), 653-5.
G. D. Birkhoff (ed.), A source book in classical analysis (Cambridge, Mass., 1973)
contains a (sometimes surprising) selection of primary texts of the nineteenth century
translated into English where necessary. Unfortunately the 'translation' includes modernizing expressions and notations, sometimes to such a degree that some passages are
barely recognizable from the originals.
For better sensitivity to the issues exhibited by another eminent mathematician, see the
lecture delivered by A. Weil in 1978 to an International Congress of Mathematicians:
"History of mathematics - why and how", in his Collected papers, iii (Heidelberg, 1979),
434-42.
The principal means that I advocate to be used in education is 'history-satire', where the
mathematics of the past is used as a bank of results and methods for some modem
educational purpose: the general historical record is respected (for example, changes in
practice over decades), but the nuances of historiography are usually set aside (see my
"Not from nowhere: History and philosophy behind mathematical education", International journal of mathematical education in science and technology, iv (1973), 421-53).
Similar techniques could obtain for education in other sciences.
The British Society for the History of Mathematics, mentioned in Section I, was formed in
1971 (chiefly by J. M. Dubbey and G. J. Whitrow), partly to reflect an increase in interest
in the subject but especially because societies in neighbouring disciplines were so
apathetic, or even hostile and contemptuous, to it that a separate organisation had to be
formed.
See my op. cit. (ref. 20). The aftermath "discussion" involved one particular theorem
(International journal of mathematical education in science and technology, vi (1975),
252-3).
See my (ed.), History in mathematics education: Proceedings of a workshop held at the
University of Toronto, Canada, July-August 1983 (paris, 1987).
In a further misfortune, History of Mathematics is both too historical and too mathematical
for modern professionalized philosophers, despite the considerable influence that mathematics has borne upon philosophy (many of the great philosophers were mathematicians) and still brings to many of its modern concerns (especially in the (mis-)use of
logical systems and theories). But there has been some increase in interest in the history of
philosophy recently (a society for the subject has been formed in Britain), and in response
to an evident gap in the literature I launched in 1980 the journal History and philosophy of

THE CASE OF MATHEMATICS

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

171

logic, a topic which was too logical and philosophical for historians, and too historical
for logicians and philosophers.
I know of cases where the mathematician pursued orthodox research in order to gain
promotion and tenure, and then exhibited his genuine interest in history.
How large is the community of mathematicians which cannot find space for historians?
One indication is a recent Combined membership list of the American Mathematical
Society, the Mathematical Association of America, and the Society for Industrial and
Applied Mathematics (Providence, 1987), which covers not only the USA but (through
joint memberships of other societies) a number of mathematicians from other countries.
The book lists around 43,000 persons, with the majority of them based in institutions of
higher education.
See my Convolutions in French mathematics, 1800-1840: From the calculus and mechanics to
mathematical analysis and mathematical physics (3 vols, Basel and Berlin, DDR, 1990);
cited hereafter as Convolutions. M. P. Crosland, The Society ofArcueil ... (London, 1967)
remains unmatched as a general survey of the institutions that were operating during the
Imperial period; my "Grandes ecoles, petite Universite: Some puzzled remarks on higher
education in mathematics in France, 1795-1840", History ofuniversities, vii (1988), 197225 looks more myopically, but in more detail, at those associated with mathematics up
to the 1830s. J. G. Dhombres, "Mathematisation et communaute scientifique francaise
(1775-1825)", Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, xxvi (1986), 249-93, contains a variety of information on the French mathematical community of the time.
An excellent example of forgotten importance is the Ourcq canal project (1802-25), which not
only ran a long canal up to Paris but also involved the digging of the city's port at La
Villette, a pair of extra canals running from there to link with the Seine to north and to
south, and a system of subsidiary water systems to improve the supply to Paris. It was the
major civil engineering project of the period, and affected the everyday life of the capital.
The mathematics of the water-flow of large bodies, and various related topics, gained
fresh attention. The main director of the project wrote his own extensive survey and
history (P. S. Girard, Memoires sur Ie canal de I'Ourcq ... (2 vols and 2 vols atlas, Paris,
1831-45); since then nothing of significance has been done on it ... (a brief account is
included in my Convolutions, ch. 8).
See especially M. Bradley, "Gaspard-Clair-Francois-Marie Riche de Prony ..." (CNAA
(London) Ph.D., 1984),chs 2 and 3, of which a small portion was published as her "Civil
engineering and social change: The early history of the Paris Ecole des Ponts et
Chaussees", History of education, xiv (1985), 171-83.
See, for examples among many, C. Ponteil, Histoire de l'enseignement de France ... (Paris,
1966); and N. Hulin-Jong, L'organisation de l'enseignement des sciences (Paris, 1989).
There seems to be a tradition among French historians to confine their accounts to the
Universite system (whose origins are outlined in the next clause); it is high time that it
stopped.
In accord with the situation described in Section 2, C. Zwerling fails to notice the relatively
quick rise of mathematics in his excellent thesis on the history of scienceeducation at the
Ecole Normale ("The emergence of the Ecole Normale Superieure as a center of scientific
education in nineteenth century France" (Harvard University Ph.D., 1976.
Prior to 1830 the Ecole Normale could boast as its principal graduate in mathematics
A. Cournot (who only studied there for one year). In 1831 it expelled E. Galois, whose
name is one of the best-known in mathematics for his visualization of many essential
features of group theory. One of the best-known stories in the history of mathematics is
that Galois was killed in a duel in 1832, and teachers routinely enliven their teaching of
group theory by retelling this event to their students. However, in line with mathemati-

172

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.
36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

I. GRATTAN-GUINNESS

cians' normal view of history discussed in Section 3, they never think of building their
teaching upon the action that Galois took the night before the duel- namely, to write
down some exciting and profound mathematics.
An historical book exists in which Galois's work is discussed and his essays are
translated in English (H. M. Edwards, Galois theory (Heidelberg, 1984; but it is not
normally recommended reading. Yet group theory (not only Galois's contributions to it)
is a branch of mathematics marvellously suitable for teaching from an historical point of
view - namely, its emergence from specific applications through a body of general
results to axiomatized and uninterpreted forms instead of the unintelligible and unmotivated reverse order which is normally followed in teaching. On this history, see H.
Wussing, Die Genesis des abstrakten Gruppenbegriffes (Berlin, DDR, 1969); English
trans., The genesis of the abstract group concept (Cambridge, Mass., 1984).
See Index biographique de l'Academie des Sciences du 22 decembre 1666 au I" octobre 1978
(paris, 1979), 5-97.
An excellent recent social history of French cartography fails to mention Puissant even once,
although he was the leading mathematical cartographer in France for the first half of the
nineteenth century; unfortunately his work was full of sums (J. Konwitz, Cartography in
France 1660-1848 ... (Chicago 1987. P. Bret (Paris) is currently studying French
cartography in depth.
See, for example, T. S. Kuhn, "Mathematical vs. [sic] experimental traditions in the
development of physical science", Journal ofinterdisciplinary history, vii (1976-77), 1-31;
also in his The essential tension (Chicago and London, 1977), 31--65.
Among the MAP members, Fresel and Malus were probably the best experimenters; and
Ampere and Fourier at least tried, Ampere'S experiments being ingenious in conception.
Biot was enthusiastic but sometimes very sloppy. In addition, CME member Hachette
was unusual in working from time to time in electricity, and the collaborative work done
by Lame with his CME friend Clapeyron in Russia (on which see M. Bradley, "FrancoRussian engineering links: The careers of Lame and Clapeyron, 1820-1830", Annals of
science, xxviii (1981),291-312) shows that he could have become a major CME member
had he wished to concentrate in those areas. But the division proposed fits the community
as a whole remarkably well.
See my "Modes and manners of applied mathematics: The case of mechanics", in Rowe and
McCleary, op. cit. (ref. 9).
On the physical aspects of these developments, see R. Fox, "The rise and fall of Laplacian
physics", Historical studies in the physical sciences, iv (1974),81-136; on the mathematical ones see my "From Laplacian physics to mathematical physics, 1805-1826", in C.
Burrichter, R. Inhetveen and R. Kotter (eds), Zum Wandel des Naturverstdndnisses
(Paderborn, 1987), 11-34, and also my Convolutions, ch. 7.
There maya partial case of this kind to be made for Fresnel: the origins of his waval
conception oflight are not clear. For a recent history of optics of this period which takes
mathematics seriously, see J. Z. Buchwald, The rise ofthe wave theory oflight ... (Chicago,
1989).
See my "Work for the workers: Advances in engineering mechanics and instruction in France,
18~1830", Annals of science, xli (1984), 1-33; and for somewhat more detail my
Convolutions, ch. 16.
The term "social physics" is often credited to A. Quetelet; but Comte claimed priority for it
(to 1822) in a typically sarcastic footnote against "a Belgian" (A. Comte, Cours de
philosophie positive, iv (paris, 1839),7).
See the documents transcribed in my "Recent researches in French mathematical physics of

THE CASE OF MATHEMATICS

173

the early 19th century", Annals of science, xxxvii (1981), 663-90, pp. 684-90, and in
Convolutions as Document 20.8.
41. Fourier had produced much of his work on heat theory and Fourier analysis between 1804
and 1812, and it was known to Lagrange, Laplace, Biot and Poisson (mostly with
negative consequences for Fourier); but it received publication and widespread attention
only after 1816. See my Convolutions, chs 9 and 12.
42. See especially J. Ben-David, "The rise and decline of France as a scientific centre", Minerva,
viii (1970), 160-79; and D. Outram, "Politics and vocation: French science 1793-1830",
The British journal for the history of science, xiii (1980), 27--43.
43. H. Paul provides a welcome exception, although even he only mentions mathematics and does
not discuss its development, at either the research or educational levels ("The issue of
decline in nineteenth-century French science", French historical studies, vii (1971-72),
416-51).