>
> I've found most mathematicians I've known to be respectful of history of
> mathematics, and sometimes deeply interested in it, although I do remember
> some exceptions. For example, I remember Ed Moise many years ago saying
> contemptuously that all historians (of any kind, I guess) do is take
> records from library shelves and write things which transfer the records to
> other library shelves (or something along these lines). I also remember
> some other topologists of the school of R L Moore (Ed Moise was one, and so
> am I as far as my dissertation is concerned -- it was directed by R D
> Anderson, a student of Moore) who thought history of mathematics should be
> avoided by mathematicians because it would interfere with their creativity.
> But then, Moore topologists have not been noted for their breadth, or
> perhaps I should say have been noted for their narrowness. I remember when
> R L Wilder (a student of Moore) was, so to speak, drummed out of the Moore
> coterie by R L Moore for descending to the study of general manifolds,
> using (ugh) algebraic techniques and other alien devices.
>
Of course, in R.L. Wilder's case, the use of algebraic techniques was the
beginning of a slippery slope leading to his work in hisotory and sociology
of science culminating in the books 'Evolution of mathematical concepts'
and 'Mathematics as a cultural system' and papers such as 'Hereditary stress
as a cultural force in mathematics' (Hist. Math. 1 (1974) 29-46). Was his
topological work as creative?
Duncan Melville
-- Duncan J. Melville Dept of Mathematics St. Lawrence University Canton, NY 13617