> (1) If the topic being considered were written up in a book and sent to
> the library, would the librarians classify it as mathematics? (e.g.,
> under QA in U.S. Library of Congress, or under 510 in Dewey Decimal).
> How do librarians decide what should be classified as mathematics?
> (I'm going to ask my school's math librarian about that.)
That is suggestive but not conclusive. My own university library has all
3 volumes of Theophrastus (c. 300 BC) "On the Causes of Plants" in English
and Greek on facing pages. I had trouble finding them all because one
was (understandably) catalogued under Botany and the others (equally
understandably) under Classics.
Library books on fluid mechanics are equally likely to be QA QC or various
flavours of T [engineering].
> (2) If the topic being considered were written up in an article and
> published in a journal, could it get reviewed in Math Reviews? How do
> the editors of MR decide what is mathematics? (I'm going to ask a
> colleague who I believe is a former editor of MR.)
Also suggestive but not conclusive. Some publications in my own area
(fluid mechanics theory) get reviewed there, some do not, for no reason I
can discover.
John Harper, School of Mathematical and Computing Sciences,
Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand
e-mail john.harper@vuw.ac.nz phone (+64)(4)471 5341 fax (+64)(4)495 5045
(I'm currently in UK but please continue to use the above e-mail address)