History of Mathematics || History of Mathematics: Resources on the World Wide Web

History of Mathematics: Resources on the World Wide WebAuthor(s): June Barrow-GreenSource: Mathematics in School, Vol. 27, No. 4, History of Mathematics (Sep., 1998), pp. 16-22Published by: The Mathematical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30211869 .

Accessed: 07/04/2014 11:23

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

The Mathematical Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toMathematics in School.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 173.69.19.125 on Mon, 7 Apr 2014 11:23:25 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mathas

http://www.jstor.org/stable/30211869?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


Historyof Mathematics

Resources on the

World Wide Web

by June Barrow-Green

One of the greatest changes in classroom practice of recent years is access to the World Wide Web: in those classrooms, at least, where schools can afford the cost of local telephone connections (a problem not faced in North American classrooms where local telephone calls are free). The Web potentially places enormous information resources at the fingertips of every student. But how to access the most suitable information, how to judge its suitability, and what to do with it once accessed are all issues which teachers are in the process of working out. This guide to some kinds of available resources is intended to help teachers judge how best to use new technology for the benefit of their students, in the context of exploring a historical dimension to mathematical studies.

The Web contains a vast and diverse array of material on various aspects of history of mathematics and is potentially one of the most powerful resources in the subject commonly available. Whether history of mathematics is being taught as a subject in its own right, employed as a vehicle to improve students' attitudes towards mathematics or used as a curricu- lum integrator, the Web can provide an extremely useful tool. It can be used in order to augment an existing body of knowledge, or it can be used as a single research tool in its own right. It may be just one of several resources required to complete a project or it may be the only one required. It may be used to find the answer to a specific question, or it may be used to learn more about history of mathematics in general. The material now available on the Web ranges from interactive texts and museum catalogues, through to high school student projects, and also includes a wide range of reference sources. Furthermore, since using the Web efficiently re- quires specialized study skills, history of mathematics can itself be used as a medium for developing or honing those skills and helping with the use of the Internet generally.

However, wonderful though it is to have access to huge quantities of information, it is not much use if you cannot find what you want. Moreover, the quality of Web pages varies widely and so far there is no common standard. Any- one, anywhere can place material on the Web and so it is

16

important to develop a strategy for assessing the quality of the information. To make the best use of the Web you need to be able both to search the Web efficiently and to recognize a 'good' site when you find one.

Searching the Web A lot of time can be wasted through making searches that result in the delivery of inappropriate material. The common search engines do not provide a very high quality service and it is easy to forget that when beginning a search, the entire Web is at your disposal. It is therefore important to be as specific as possible when commencing a general search. (Imagine walking into a library and asking for every book or article connected with the word Newton, as opposed to con- fining your search on Newton to the history of mathematics section of the library.) One way to start is to go straight to a site with which you are familiar and look for relevant links. Although, however good the links are, it is still a good idea to do a general search to ensure that you do not miss any new sites which have been created after the links were made.

Critical Evaluation

In evaluating the quality of a resource on the Web, there are several questions you can usefully ask yourself, although it may not always be possible, or indeed feasible, to answer all of them. Since the Web is often the provider of information in situations where little or no other sources are available, a difficulty that many users face is the lack of other standards by which to measure the information they find. Nevertheless, there is some extremely high quality material published on the Web which can be used as a yardstick when evaluating other sites, and several very good sites are highlighted in the list below.

Although it may be difficult, try to assess the authority of the author of the site. Look for anything that might indicate acknowledged expertise in the subject matter. For example, is there a list of other publications by the author displayed on

Mathematics in School, September 1998



the sitea Look for background information about the author. There may be something displayed at the top of the site or there may be a link to the author's home page. It is worth bearing in mind that an author being attached to a reputable organisation is not necessarily a guarantee of the reliability of the site-many organisations do not take responsibility for the academic content of their sites. Look to see whether the author can be contacted for clarification (or correction!). Look too for information about the creation of the site and its subsequent history. A site created as the result of a personal interest stimulated while on holiday is clearly in a different category to a site explicitly supported by funding from an academic institution.

Questions concerning the accuracy of the information displayed can be even harder to answer, particularly if it is not even clear whether the information is factual or whether it represents an opinion. Look for references to established sources. Try checking some of the information against such sources, or checking information about which you have certain or specialized knowledge. You could also try cross- checking information against other sites, although you need to be sure that the one site did not get its information from the other. The Web is an ideal environment for errors to go forth and multiply!

The currency of the information can also be important. Some sites are clearly static, e.g. a site containing the text of a book, while others are, or claim to be, dynamic, that is they are in process of continuing construction, e.g. a site containing a compilation of references, and in the latter case you need to know how up to date they are. Good dynamic sites will have the date of the last update prominently displayed, and such sites will often invite comment and/or contributions.

The majority of sites contain links to other pages, but it is not always clear before you follow a link whether it is an internal or an external one, i.e. whether the link is to a page created by the original author or whether the link is to a page on a site created by somebody else. If it is an external link, you need to be aware of the need to think critically about the link as well as the original site, not least because the contents of an external link can change at any time without the knowledge of the author of the original site. You can tell what type of a link it is by checking the address once you have arrived.

Finally, there are the general characteristics of the site, such as the standard of the prose, the clarity of communication, the completeness of the information, and the ease of navigation, to consider. Again, comparison with published texts from established sources can be helpful. In addition you should be alert to indicators of a particular interest or bias. If you suspect that there might be a hidden agenda look for further evidence on other pages produced by the author. On larger sites consistency of quality can be a problem. For example, on sites constructed under the auspices of an organisation, authors are often not identified, even generically, and so it is quite possible for a single site to be the work of several individuals with a wide range of backgrounds. Some of these sites have several different types of pages and it is worthwhile to check these pages individually.

In terms of developing your students' own critical skills, it may serve as a profitable exercise to put some of the above questions directly to them. You could, for example, set projects precisely on the critical reading of sites, e.g. compar- ing different accounts of the same thing and asking if they concur, and if so why (both true independently, or one copied from the other), and if not, what lessons might be learnt from placing reliance on sources in general.

Web Sites

The following is a list of Web sites containing material relevant to the study of history of mathematics. Some of these sites are specifically devoted to history of mathematics while


others are part of larger sites. Sites that contain, or have links that contain, images and are slow to download, or which are interactive and require a specially enabled browser, have been marked with a dagger (t). A 'hypertext' site is one which contains pages in which there are links to other pages explicitly incorporated within the text itself. A 'hypermedia' site is one that incorporates the opportunity to access additional media, such as music or animation. This list of sites is by no means exhaustive but rather it is intended to provide an indication of the wide diversity of materials now available. Many more sites can be found through viewing the pages of Web Resources listed below. Finally, the Web is dynamic: there is no guarantee that any of these sites will still exist by the time this article appears in print, although it is hoped and anticipated that most of them will. It is always wise to check the accessibility of a site before attempting to demonstrate it to others.

1. General Sites All large sites have a gateway page that gives an indication of the type of resources that are available on other pages of the site. The following are the addresses of gateways to three of the best known general sites on history of mathematics. (Some of the pages on these sites are also included in other sections.)

David Joyce's History of Mathematics Home Page http:/l/alephO.clarku.edu/-djoycelmathhist/mathhist.html This is the starting point to a wealth of resources provided by David Joyce of Clark University, USA. There are pages on regional mathematics, subjects, books, journals, bibliography, history of mathematics texts, etc., as well as an excellent list of Web Resources clearly categorized (see below), a very extensive chronology, and timelines. A highly recommended site.

St Andrews Mac Tutor History of Mathematics http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/ A collection of biographies of mathematicians, and a variety of resources on the developments of various branches of mathematics. The site includes an interactive (Java) famous curves index, pages on mathematical societies' medals and honours, and birthplace maps. An extremely rich and extensive site with some excellent pages although the quality is not always consistent. In particular, the biographies should be viewed with care. Overall, though, a good place to start.

Trinity College, Dublin, History of Mathematics Archive http:llwww.maths.tcd.ielpub/HistMathlHistMath.html This site, which was created and is maintained by David Wilkins, includes biographies of some seventeenth and eight- eenth century mathematicians, material on Hamilton, Boole, Berkeley, Newton and Cantor, and an extensive directory of history of mathematics websites (see below). Another good place to start.

2. Web Resources Many sites contain pages that are devoted to links to other related sites. Providing they are kept up to date, these can be extremely useful. However, there is a tendency to provide lists of links with no annotation, which means that there is no way of telling whether a site is, for example, hypertext, interactive, image intensive, or indeed whether it has been prepared by scholars or students. You can therefore end up wasting a lot of time downloading a site which turns out not to have the information you require. So until you have visited a lot of sites and know your way around enough to recognize sites only by name, it is better to use an annotated list of resources.

17



David Joyce's History of Mathematics Web Resources

http:l//alephO.clarku.edu/-l~djoycelmathhistlwebresources. html A well categorized and annotated list of resources. Hyper- media exhibits are listed separately and there are also links to history of science pages. The emphasis is more towards larger sites containing sequences of internal links rather than stand- alone sites containing material on a single topic or person.

David Calvis's History of Mathematics Web Sites http://llwww2.bw.edu/-dcalvis/history.html A well annotated list of about twenty five sites put together by David Calvis of Baldwin-Wallace College, Ohio. Special- ized sites are listed in order of earliest date covered.

St Andrews Mac Tutor History of Mathematics: Links to External Pages http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/External/ external links.html An annotated but unordered list of twenty six sites, including most of the major ones but also including one or two others not found on any of the other lists. (See also Section 3.)

ftThe Mathematical Museum-History Wing http:/llelib.zib-berlin.de:88/Math-Net/Links/mathe- museum.hist.html The 'History' wing of The Mathematical Museum is part of the Math-Net Links to the Mathematical World and contains links to exhibitions, hyperbooks, information systems, museums and pages of interest for the history of mathematics and associated fields. It consists of sections on history of mathematics, history of computing and communication, and related history information. It is well annotated and includes some sample illustrations.

Resources on Women Mathematicians

http://llwww.agnesscott.edullriddlelwomenlresource.htm A partially annotated list of web resources, and a list of books and articles about women in mathematics. This site has a particularly well designed and informative introductory page. (See also Sections 3 and 8.)

Trinity College, Dublin, History of Mathematics Archive: History of Mathematics Web Directory http://www.maths.tcd.ielpublHistMathlLinks.html An extremely well organized and extensive list of Web resources. The sites are categorized but not annotated. Never- theless, the list includes many of the best sites currently accessible, and if you know of a good site but do not have the address there is a reasonable chance that you will find it here.

Fred Rickey's Home Page http:/lernie.bgsu.edu/-vrickey/ Fred Rickey of Bowling Green University, USA, is one of the leading proponents of using history in mathematics education. His Home Page contains annotated links to wide variety of resources, including a description of his own history of mathematics course.

3. Biography There is plenty of material on the Web concerned with lives of mathematicians. It comes in a wide variety of guises, much of it excellent, and, on the whole, the Web is a very good place to start looking for biographical material. There are sites devoted to individuals, some of which, e.g. The Sir Isaac Newton Home Page and The Alan Turing Home Page, even give the appearance that the subject has created the site! These 'personal' sites generally contain a broad spectrum of material about the individual and have good links to other relevant sites. There are also sites devoted to certain groups, e.g. mathematicians of a particular period and/or place, and sites which are extensive compendiums of biography. Many of the sites are well illustrated, although some of the early 'portraits' should be treated with circumspection!

18

St Andrew's Archive

http:l//www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.ukhistory/BiogIndex. html This is a collection of more than 1,000 biographies, illustrated, referenced, and indexed both alphabetically and chronologically. There are also birthplace maps, as well as a separate index of female mathematicians. Although the en- tries are of variable quality, it is the best place to start for basic biographical information. (See also Section 2.)

Richard Westfall's Archive of the Scientific Community in the 16th and 17th Centuries

http:lles.rice.edulES/humsoclGalileolCataloglcatalog. html This site, which was created by the late Richard Westfall, distinguished author of Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton, contains concise biographical details of about 630 members of the scientific community in the 16th and 17th centuries, of which about 170 are mathematicians. The individuals are systematically described by ten categories (which are fully explained) using twenty searchable fields. The data, which is presented formally, is well organized and includes details of the sources consulted. This is a very scholarly and reliable site. (A list of the mathematicians contained in the archive can be found through a link on the St Andrew's site.)

Biographies of Women Mathematicians http://www.agness c ott.edu/lriddlelwomen/women.htm Biographical essays or comments on many women mathematicians and some photographs. The material is indexed both alphabetically and chronologically. The site is part of an ongoing project by students at Agnes Scott College, USA. (See also Sections 2 and 8.)

Hypatia of Alexandria http://wwwlpolyamory.org/-howard/Hypatia An extensive and partially annotated list of web resources connected with Hypatia. The internal links include a long list of published books and articles that contain information on Hypatia, as well as transcriptions from 18th and 20th centuries texts.

Mathematicians of the 17th and 18th Centuries

http://lwww.maths.tcd.ielpublHistMathlPeoplel RBallHist.html A collection of biographies of 17th and 18th century mathematicians adapted from A Short Account of the History of Mathematics by WW Rouse Ball. (See also sections 2 and 7.)

The Sir Isaac Newton Home Page http:/128.163.113.57/cover.html The work of Force and Krumpelman from the University of Kentucky. It includes a good and detailed article on Newton's life and thought, and one on the general background to Newton's manuscripts.

Newtonia http://wwwcn. cern. chl-mcnabln/ A wide-ranging collection of material about Newton, as well as information about places and people significant to him. It was created by Andrew McNab of Manchester University and includes a nice detailed explanation, About Newtonia, of the genesis of the site. There are good links to other Newton resources.

The Alan Turing Home Page http://wadham.ox.ac.uk/-ahodges/Turing.html A large and well structured site on Turing's life and work maintained by Andrew Hodges, the author of Alan Turing: The Enigma. It includes material on the history of the com- puter as well as links to other related sites.

4. Regional Mathematics There are many sites on regional, particularly ancient, mathematics. Many of the general sites, notably David Joyce's site




and the St Andrews' site listed in Section 1, include good regional pages. The following is a short list of some smaller (in terms of their history of mathematics content) sites which illustrate a variety of presentations.

tEgyptian Mathematics Problems http://eyelid.ukonline.co.uklancient/maths 1.htm and Imaths2.htm and Imaths3.htm Some basic mathematical problems for high school pupils produced by artist Mark Millimore as part of his extensively illustrated Ancient Egypt site.

ftEgyptian Fractions http://lwww.ics.uci.edul-eppstein/numthlegypt/ An investigation into Egyptian fractions using Mathematica. Several annotated links to other sites of interest on Egyptian mathematics.

tAncient India's Contribution to Mathematics

http://lindia.coolatlanta.comlGreatPageslsudheerl maths.html An accessible broad outline of the achievements of Indian mathematicians between 1000 BC and AD 1000 extracted from Birodkar Sudheer's book India's Contribution to World Culture.

Mayan Numbers http:ll//www.vpds.wsu.edulfair_951gymlum001.html A short poster on the question 'Did the Mayans have a numerical system, and if so, how did it worka', submitted to Washington State University's 1995 Virtual Science and Mathematics Fair. An example of material aimed at high school pupils.

5. Museums with Mathematics Exhibits More and more museums are now using the Web to advertise their wares, both in terms of permanent collections and special exhibitions, and history of science museums are no exception. One particular development that is to be warmly applauded is the practice of putting exhibition catalogues up on the Web. This is not least because the quality of many of these on-line catalogues is extraordinarily good. The avail- ability of these catalogues has the benefit of broadening access to students for whom an actual visit would be impossible, as well as enabling those students who are able to make a visit prepare for it. Added to which, they extend the life of the exhibition long after it has been dismantled, and also make extremely useful resources for project work. Furthermore, Web sites provide museums with the opportunity to put their exhibits into a much wider context than would otherwise be possible.

flMSS-The Institute and Museum of the History of Science, Florence: Galileo Room http:/lgalileo.imss.firenze.itlmuseolblegalilg.html A hypermedia catalogue of the Museum's Galileo room. It contains a biography of Galileo as well as exhibits devoted to his contributions to mechanics, astronomy, the microscope, thermometry and magnetism. There are also short biographies of other individuals connected to Galileo. This is an extremely good and well illustrated site.

fThe Museum of the History of Science, Oxford http :/www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/ Of particular interest for the history of mathematics are two of the on-line exhibitions: The Measurers: A Flemish Image of Mathematics in the Sixteenth Century and The Geometry of War 1500-1750. These exhibition catalogues are beautifully illustrated and very well designed.

fLibrary of Congress Vatican Exhibit Mathematics Room http:llsunsite. unc. edulexpolvatican. exhibit/exhibit/ d-mathematicslMathematics .html A hypertext site containing annotated Greek and Latin manuscripts of mathematics and astronomy, with very high


quality images including a 9th century version of Euclid's Elements showing the Pythagorean Theorem and 13th and 15th century versions of Archimedes' Works.

6. Special Exhibits These are sites which make use of a variety of devices available to those with sufficiently enhanced browsers, and also tend to be very image intensive. However, it is not always necessary to enable all the tools in order to get a good sense of the potential of the sites and they are well worth visiting, if only to get an idea of what sort of things are possible.

fThe Art of Renaissance Science: Galileo and Perspective http://bang.lanl.govlvideolstv/arshtmllarstoc.html A beautifully illustrated discussion by the distinguished historian of mathematics, J.W. Dauben, of the interconnec- tions between art and science in the Renaissance, in particular the development of perspective, and how these connections relate to the role of Galileo in the Scientific Revolution. As well as excellent images, the pages also contain animations, video clips and music.

FGalileo Project at Rice University http://es.rice.edulES/humsoc/Galileol A superb hypertext source of information on the life and work of Galileo, and the science of his time. This is an extremely rich and well-designed site with very high quality images, e.g. the Instrument Closet, which contains text and images about the instruments used by Galileo to perform his experi- ments. (See also Section 8.)

7. Books On-line Texts on-line come in two forms: straightforward copies of original texts-particularly useful if the text in question is otherwise difficult to obtain-or copies which have been annotated or translated in order to increase accessibility.

The History Of Hypatia http://www.polyamory.org/~howard/Hypatial Lewis 1721.html A partial transcription of a very rare 18th century text, the full title of which is The History Of Hypatia, A most Impudent School-Mistress ofAlexandria: Murder'd and torn to Pieces by the Populace, In Defence of Saint Cyril and the Alexandrian Clergy. From the Aspersions of Mr. Toland.

fEdwin Abbott: 'Flatland' http://attila.stevens-tech.edulmath_historylauthorsl Abbott/ flatl0.txt The full text of Flatland in plain text. Although there are no illustrations, the length of the text means that it takes some time to download.

Rouse Ball's History of Mathematics http :/lwww.maths. tcd. ielpub/HistMath/People/RBallHist. html Excerpts from Rouse Ball's A Short Account of the History of Mathematics (4th edition, 1908). (See also Sections 2 and 3.)

fEuclid's Elements

http:l/aleph0. clarku. edu/-dj oyce/java/elementsltoc.html A full text interactive version of Euclid's Elements with historical and mathematical comments produced by David Joyce. With a Java enabled browser (Netscape or Internet Explorer Version 3 or higher) it is possible to dynamically change the diagrams. This is a remarkable site which makes the Elements accessible in a completely new way. Highly recommended.

The Perseus Project, Tufts University http :/lwwwlperseus. tufts . edulTextslchunk_T O C .html Translations (and originals) of many works of ancient Greek authors, including the works of Aristotle, and Euclid's Elements with Heath's commentary.

19



8. Student Projects Student projects are now well established across the curricu- lum, and the Web can be an extremely useful resource in this context. It can be used not only as a means of supplying information for the project, but also as the medium by which the students present their work. In the latter case students not only have the chance to share the fruits of their labours with others, but also have the opportunity to receive feedback too. The following sites are examples of student projects, some collective and some individual, which have used the Web as the medium of presentation.

Women in Mathematics http://llwww.agnesscott.edullriddlelwomen/women.htm An ongoing project by students in mathematics classes at Agnes Scott College, Atlanta, Georgia, to illustrate the achievements of women in the field of mathematics. The site includes biographies, a page on prizes and honours for women mathematicians, and a list of other resources. (See also Sections 2 and 3, and see Figure 1.)

A History of Equality http:llmembers.aol.com/ayoung l9191main.htm An article by a postgraduate student at Sussex University, on the history of the equality sign. See also the accompanying Research Proposal (http://members.aol.com/ayoungl9191 research.htm), produced by the student's supervisor, for an explanation of the rationale for putting the article on the Web. This is a good example of the Web being used to serve both the provider and the receiver of information.

Mathematical Journey Through Time http://nunic.nu.edul-frosamon/historylmath.html A series of pages to illustrate the history of mathematics from 3000 BC to the present day and beyond, produced as a collective enterprise by students from the National Univer- sity, California. Each page contains about a dozen topics, each with a brief description (sometimes as short as one line) and a link to another site (e.g. one of David Joyce's pages). There is little original input and the top page, although quite striking-it has glowing stars and transforming images-is not very helpful in that it gives no general information about the creation of the site or its authors. There is a link to the authors but it is not prominently displayed and is rather ambiguously named 'Tour Guide'. (See Figure 2.)

The Moldy Oldies Collection http://llwww.ualr.edu/"%7Eklhellerlmoldy.html A collection of biographies of famous mathematicians written and illustrated by 4th grade (9-10 year old) students of College Station, USA. Although there is no original material (apart from the charming illustrations), the site provides a nice model for a school project. (See Figure 3.)

Continued Fractions http://www.calvin.edu/academic/math/confrac/ A project on continued fractions by a mathematics honours student at Calvin College, Michigan. Although the site is about continued fractions in general and includes some interactive programs for calculating them, there is an

Biographies of Women Mathematicians

Welcome to the web page for biographies of women in mathematics. These pages are part of an on-going project by students in mathematics classes at Agnes Scott

the field of mathematics. There are biographical essays or comments on most of the College, in Atlanta, Georgia, to illustrate the numerous achievements of women in

women mathematicians and some photos (which look best at more than 256 colors). Our goal is for this list to continue to expand, and for more biographies to be

completed.

We also welcome contributions of biographical information or essays from those outside Agnes Scott College. If you are interested in contributing an essay, please send your contribution to Larry Riddle. Comments, suggestions, or corrections can also be sent to this address.

Names in Alphabetical Order S ..... ..... .... ... . . .. .. ... ... ... ... ... . . .. . . . . .. . .. .. . . . .

Names in Chronological Order

Other Resources

Photo Credits

The First Ph.D's in Mathematics by Women before 1930

Prizes, Awards and.Honorsfor. Women Mathematicians

Honors and awards for this web site

Agnes Scott College, founded in 1889, is a private liberal arts college for women in Decatur, GA, a suburb of Atlanta. For more information about the college, visit the college's home page.

Ages Scott College Homepage

Agnes Scott College Mathematics Department

Copyright a© 1995-1998 LRiddtle @ness.Ag nesSc:tt..edut Department of Mathematics Agnes Scott College Decatur, GA 30030

Number of visitors to this page since January 1, 1996 is wWE Ialla-t-agag

http://www.AgnesScott.edu/lriddle/women/women.htm Last modified: March 1998

Fig. 1 Biographies of Women Mathematicians. An example of a well designed and informative Web page

20 Mathematics in School, September 1998



Welcome to a Mathematical Journey through Timle

Select Coordinates for space/time re-entry:

* 3000 BC I- AD * AD 1 - 999 0 1000 - 1499 0 1500- 1599 0 1600- 1699 0 1700 - 1799

..O(... f')

0 1800 - 1899 0 19100 - Presentt Time a Beyond

0 1996 Jiilin Cha, All R1ht Rsrvd

informative history section and a good bibliography, including references to other related sites.

fGalileo Project at Rice University http:/les.rice.edulESlhumsoclGalileolStudent_Work/ An excellent collection of student projects which derived from a course on 'Galileo in Context'. (See also Section 6.)

9. Miscellaneous A few extra sites that you may find helpful or interesting to visit but which do not fall naturally into any of the categories above.

Earliest Uses of Various Mathematical Symbols http ://members.aol. c om/jeff570/mathsym.html Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of Mathematics http:/Imembers.aol.com/jeff570/mathword.html The above two sites, which are the product of multiple contributors, are very high quality and provide an excellent resource. They are maintained by Jeff Miller of Gulf High School, Florida and contributions are welcomed.

tHistory of Mathematics with Original Sources http://www.ma.iup.edu/-gstoudt/historylma350/ sources home.html A collection of materials for using original sources in a history of mathematics class. The site, which is the work of Gary Stoudt of Indiana University of Pennsylvania, contains a reading list, and a collection of discussion questions and homework problems, together with some images of famous works.

Kevin Brown's History of Mathematics Pages http:l//www.seanet. com/-ksbrownlihistory.htm A series of about thirty informal notes devoted to a variety of topics in the history of mathematics, ranging from the general, e.g. Negative Numbers, to the particular, e.g. Did Poincare discover relativitya The articles, which are not referenced, represent a personal but informed view.

A Bibliography of Collected Works of Mathematicians http://math. c ornell.edu/-library/collectedwks.html An extensive and thoroughly researched bibliography com- piled over many years by Steven Rockey, the mathematical librarian at Cornell University, USA.


Fig. 2 Welcome to a Mathematical Journey through Time. An example of an exuberantly designed but not very informative or helpful Web page

10. Bibliography These sites contain lists of published books and/or articles that are relevant to using history of mathematics in an edu- cational context.

Teaching History of Mathematics http://ernie.bgsu.edul-vrickeylinstitutelteach-hist-biblio. html An annotated list of published papers that discuss the teaching of history of mathematics courses.

Textbooks for a History of Mathematics Course http:llernie.bgsu.edu/-vrickeyminilbooks.html A list of possible textbooks for a history of mathematics course. These are books mostly suitable for teaching an undergraduate course but they also provide good background reading for anyone with a general interest in the history of mathematics.

BSHM Abstracts http ://lwww.des.warwick.ac.uk/bshmlabs.html Brief abstracts, sorted alphabetically by author, of papers published in journals and books. There is a separate education section covering abstracts of papers on the uses of history of mathematics in education, history of mathematics courses, and the history of mathematics education.

Texts on the History of Mathematics http:/l/aleph0.clarku.edu/-djoycedmathhist/textbooks.html A list of texts including textbooks and similar general references. There is no annotation so this page is only useful if you know the name of a source and need further details.

11. Societies Most academic disciplines have societies that exist to help the promotion of their subject at a variety of levels. The Web now provides a very convenient way to find out what such societies offer their membership, how much it costs to join, as well as supplying a means of obtaining an application form. Both of the following societies actively promote the use of history of mathematics in education at all levels.

The British Society for the History of Mathematics http ://www. dcs.warwick.ac.uk/bshm/ The site includes membership details, BSHM abstracts (see Bibliography above), an archive containing a list of talks given to the Society, and a page of links to other sites.

21



The Moldy Oldies Collection Welcome to College Station Fourth Grades' collection of Moldy

SOldies. No, we're not talking about stale bread but stale mathematicians. No, what we really mean is that this is a collection of research we wrote about famous, ancient (as in dead) .mathematicians. We did our research in the library media center and on the Internet. A lot of what we found was hard to understand because it was written by adults for adults. We didn't qualify, so we translated what we found into something other students could easily understand. We hope you like and can use what we have done.

. . :a ia J a: a, . :aa:.:i..i..:.

...

Here's our list of mathematicians. Please visit the ones that interest you. After you have learned all you can, please let us know what you think!

Have fun!

" Archimedes " Charles Babbage " Benjamin Banneker * Euclid . Leonhard Euler Pierre de Fermat * Galileo

Evariste Galois

Johann Carl Gauss

SSophieGermain * Hypatia

Sonya Kovalevsky

Ada Lovelace

John Napier

" Isaac Newton " Blaise Pascal " Pythagoras " Srinivasa Ramanujan " Thales

Last Updated: 2/6/96 Kathy L. Heller [email protected]

Fig. 3 The Moldy Oldies Collection. An example of a school project

The Canadian Societyfor History and Philosophy of Mathematics

http://lwww.kingsu.ab.ca/-glen/cshpm/home.htm The site includes membership details, free access to the History and Pedagogy of Mathematics Newsletter, and a page of links to other sites.

12. Journals Increasingly journals are being made available on the Web. Sometimes this is on open access, sometimes you need to make arrangements to pay, but there are generally indexes and quite full information about the journal. This is a good source for very recent information in a scholarly field, although in its nature the articles tend to be on the specialized side for much general classroom use.

Historia Mathematica

http://www.math.ruu.nl/hm/ Historia Mathematica, which was founded in 1974, publishes research articles in all areas of history of mathematics, book reviews, abstracts of recently published books and articles, and miscellaneous items of interest to historians of mathematics. The site contains information about the Journal, a table of contents of all volumes, a list of journals in related fields, and links to other sites.

Author June Barrow-Green, Faculty of Mathematics and Computing, The Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA. e-mail: [email protected]

The 2nd York Maths Funfair

will take place on Saturday 24th October 1998 (11am-4pm) at Burnholme Community College, Bad Bargain Lane, York Lots and lots of activities. Come and help or just drop in. Bring your kids and grannies.

Details from John Bibby

(Tel: 01904 424242, Fax: 01904 424381, Email: [email protected])

22 Mathematics in School, September 1998



Documents

History of Mathematics || History of Mathematics: Resources on the World Wide Web