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    How to Read Historical Mathematics
    How to Read Historical Mathematics
    How to Read Historical Mathematics
    Ebook129 pages1 hour

    How to Read Historical Mathematics

    By Benjamin Wardhaugh

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    About this ebook

    Techniques for deciphering texts by early mathematicians

    Writings by early mathematicians feature language and notations that are quite different from what we're familiar with today. Sourcebooks on the history of mathematics provide some guidance, but what has been lacking is a guide tailored to the needs of readers approaching these writings for the first time. How to Read Historical Mathematics fills this gap by introducing readers to the analytical questions historians ask when deciphering historical texts.

    Sampling actual writings from the history of mathematics, Benjamin Wardhaugh reveals the questions that will unlock the meaning and significance of a given text—Who wrote it, why, and for whom? What was its author's intended meaning? How did it reach its present form? Is it original or a translation? Why is it important today? Wardhaugh teaches readers to think about what the original text might have looked like, to consider where and when it was written, and to formulate questions of their own. Readers pick up new skills with each chapter, and gain the confidence and analytical sophistication needed to tackle virtually any text in the history of mathematics.

    • Introduces readers to the methods of textual analysis used by historians
    • Uses actual source material as examples
    • Features boxed summaries, discussion questions, and suggestions for further reading
    • Supplements all major sourcebooks in mathematics history
    • Designed for easy reference
    • Ideal for students and teachers
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPrinceton University Press
    Release dateMar 1, 2010
    ISBN9781400835331
    How to Read Historical Mathematics

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      Book preview

      How to Read Historical Mathematics - Benjamin Wardhaugh

      Chapter 1

      What Does It Say?

      When the cube and the things together

      Are equal to some discrete number,

      Find two other numbers differing in this one.

      Then . . . their product should always be equal

      Exactly to the cube of a third of the things.

      The remainder then as a general rule

      Of their cube roots subtracted

      Will be equal to your principal thing.

      — From Niccolò Tartaglia’s account of the solutions to the cubic equation (1539) in Fauvel and Gray, The History of Mathematics: A Reader, pp. 255–56.

      That’s quite a mouthful. In your study of the history of mathematics, you’ll quite often come across things like this. They can be baffling at first sight. On the other hand, the same piece of mathematics might be presented like this:

      To solve x ³ + cx = d,

      find u, v such that u – v = d and uv=(c/3)3 u v equals left parenthesis c divided by 3 right parenthesis cubed .

      Then x=u3−v3 x equals cube root of u minus cube root of v .

      This looks much more straightforward: it’s in a mathematical language which we can understand without much difficulty, and we can easily check whether it is true or not.

      But it’s not really obvious that the two versions say the same thing. Let’s look in detail and see if we can trace how you get from one to the other. Before we start, pause for a moment and see how much of it you can make out yourself.

      How far did you get? Give yourself a pat on the back if you managed to translate all eight lines into algebra and got something that made sense. Here’s how it goes.

      When the cube and things together

      That’s pretty cryptic, for a start. But I’ve told you that this is about solving cubic equations, so it’s fair to assume that there’s an unknown quantity—call it x—involved, and that the cube means x ³.

      What about these things? Well, if this is a cubic equation, they can only be (1) a multiple of x ², (2) a multiple of x, or (3) a constant. If Tartaglia meant a multiple of x ², he would surely say something about squares or the square, so we can rule out (1). There seems to be no way to tell whether he means a multiple of x or a constant for the moment, so let’s leave that and look at the next line.

      Are equal to some discrete number,

      That makes things a bit clearer. Some discrete number sounds pretty much like a constant—let’s call it d. That means that things is most likely a multiple of x, not another constant. Let’s call it cx. So putting the first two lines together gives us this: "x ³ and cx together are equal to d." Or, to put it another way: x ³ + cx = d.

      We’re getting somewhere. The first two lines state the problem; the rest of the quote presumably tells us how to solve it.

      Find two other numbers differing in this one.

      Suddenly we’re lost again. Find two numbers—find u and v, say—differing in this one. This what? Tartaglia means this number: that is, the discrete number from the previous line, the constant that we called d. So this line means "find u and v differing by d" or "find u, v such that u – v = d."

      Then . . . their product should always be equal

      Exactly to the cube of a third of the things.

      Their product is the product of u and v. It’s meant to be equal to the cube of a third of the things. The last time the word things was mentioned it meant cx. Here that would give us uv=(cx/3)3 u v equals left parenthesis c x divided by 3 right parenthesis cubed , right?

      Wait a moment. If x is our unknown, we can’t have it in our definition of u and v. What else can things mean?

      Perhaps it means the coefficient: not cx but just c. That gives us uv=(c/3)3 u v equals left parenthesis c divided by 3 right parenthesis cubed , which makes a lot more sense. Now,

      The remainder then as a general rule

      Of their cube roots subtracted

      The remainder . . . of their cube roots subtracted—this has to mean "the remainder when their cube roots are subtracted from each other." If we subtracted them from anything else, we wouldn’t get one remainder, but two. So these lines mean u3−v3 cube root of u minus cube root of v .

      Will be equal to your principal thing.

      There’s no prize for guessing that your principal thing is the unknown quantity we are looking for, x. So these final lines mean x=u3−v3 x equals cube root of u minus cube root of v .

      If you go back and look at what we’ve done, you’ll see that the first two lines tell us that x ³ + cx = d; then the next six lines go on to tell us how to solve this equation: in line 3 we’re told to find u and v such that u – v = d, and in lines 4 and 5 Tartaglia says we must also have uv=(c/3)3 u v equals left parenthesis c divided by 3 right parenthesis cubed . Then, in lines 6 through 8 he reveals that this gives us a solution: x=u3−v3 x equals cube root of u minus cube root of v .

      In Modern Terms

      If you’re faced with a piece of historical mathematics that’s not in modern notation, you can . . .

      Work through it and translate it into modern terms.

      If there are quantities or numbers, make them x’s and y’s.

      If there are squares and cubes, addition, multiplication, etc., write them out using algebra.

      If there are things you can’t work out, move on. Perhaps the next few lines will make it clear.

      You could also . . .

      Find a modern version of this particular passage and compare it with your own modern version.

      Find a modern version of the same mathematical result and compare it with your own modern version.

      You’ve just seen how to translate sixteenth-century words into modern algebra: not a trivial task, but not an impossible one either. If you want some practice, there’s another example similar to this one at the end of the chapter.

      Here’s another example, with some harder mathematics in it.

      Quantities . . . which in any finite time constantly tend to equality, and which before the end of that time approach so close to one another that their difference is less than any given quantity, become ultimately equal.

      — Isaac Newton, Philosophiæ naturalis principia mathematica, Book 1, Lemma 1, translated by I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman, 1999.

      Once again, you might like to pause before reading on and have a try at translating this passage into modern notation, just as we did with the piece from Tartaglia. See how far you can get, and don’t worry if you get stuck.

      Here’s how we might translate this passage into modern notation.

      Quantities, the extract begins. Newton is talking about two quantities: let’s call them X and Y. They change over time, and we’re interested in their behavior over time, so we’ll consider them functions X(t) and Y(t) of time t. In particular, we are interested in their behavior in a given time. Assuming that time is finite, we can call it the period from t = 0 to t =

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