[HM] Myth-Transmission in the History of Mathematics
Thomas L. Drucker (tld@globalim.com)
Wed, 4 Aug 1999 16:24:48 -0400
Tony Mann's contribution about the innocuousness of passing along myths
and folklore from the history of mathematics to students has been the source
of some disquiet. The standard of accuracy in the classroom is not the same
as in a journal article. On the other hand, it is not clear to me that it
is in the students' best interest to be fed stories known to be erroneous
(of the non vero ma ben trovato variety). While we recognize the
impossibility of approaching historical issues from a God's eye view, there
are some accounts that seem to be clear improvements over their
predecessors, even if not final.
There are some historical issues where folklore is the best we have
been able to achieve. Questions about the private lives of mathematicians
can be hard to answer in the absence of any sort of documentation in print.
Where there is room for speculation, the students can be given different
versions (with 'appropriate caveats', as Tony Mann suggests). When there
has been a good deal of work spent on showing a story to be a canard, we
should be ducking our responsibility just to keep imprinting the students
with the old version.
Thomas Drucker
University of Wisconsin
tld@globalim.com