Subject: Re: [HM] surnames and arithmetization
From: David Fowler (david.fowler@warwick.ac.uk)
Date: Tue Jan 04 2000 - 06:37:12 EST
Without any knowledge whatsoever of the history of the word, I used
the phrase 'arithmetisation of geometry' (and, less frequently, of
other parts of mathematics) throughout my book _The Mathematics of
Plato's Academy_'. In fact it is a key factor of the argument there
that early Greek geometry is to a remarkable extent not arithmetised.
I don't think that Gordon Fisher's description really applies to this,
and I think not, but here it is just for fun:
David Fowler
At 6:33 pm -0500 3/1/00, Gordon wrote:
...
> In such search, there might arise problems which don't crop up in
> genealogy, at least not in the same form. What if K1 and K2 thought
> up the term independently, the later of the two without knowledge
> that the earlier had already done so? Would it be wholly fair to
> assert that the earlier one had "originated" the term?
>
> And then again one might be interested more generally in origins
> and descent of ideas of arithmetization, and not just in the use
> of the German term "arithmetisi(e)rung" to describe such processes.
> Nicht wahr?
>
> Gordon Fisher gfisher@shentel.net
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