[deletion]
> Finally, perhaps I may be excused from quoting myself: "The issue
> here is not of course to show that our culture is not entirely due
> to Mesopotamian man.... What is important is the forceful reminder
> that mathematics is not dependent on its written record." (D Tahta,
> About geometry, For the learning of mathematics, 1.1 (1980) 4 )
>
> Dick Tahta
Amen. But in what ways are we to admit conjecture into the gaps? This
could depend to some extent on our purposes. This harks back to an earlier
discussion. Is it, for example, unexceptionable for teachers in
non-history classes in mathematics to fill in in a way that will catch
student's attention, entertain them, and the like? In historical research,
how unexceptionable is it to fill in on grounds of possible logically
consistent development which has no documentary foundation?
I'm reminded of a statement made by Andre Weil, I believe in an AMS Monthly
article some years ago, to the effect that arguing from the simpler to the
more complex in historical matters might be used to justify the position
that development of the p-adic numbers preceded development of the real
numbers. :-)
Gordon Fisher gfisher@shentel.net