Re: [HM] Sophie Germain & Carl Boyer
Gordon Fisher (gfisher@shentel.net)
Sun, 08 Nov 1998 22:57:01
At 08:02 AM 11/7/98 +0000, David Fowler wrote:
>I've just listened to a poignant play about Sophie Germain on the radio,
>and when my wife wanted to know more about her, I looked her up in Boyer's
>_History of Mathematics_ and found that she's not there! She's certainly
>not in the index, and I couldn't find her in a quick skim through the text.
>And then I moved on: Sonja Kovalevskaya isn't in the index either, although
>there are 3 references to Gerhard K;, author of a book published in 1910.
>Nor Maria Agnesi. Nor Ada Lovelace. Nor Emmy Noether, though her father Max
>is there. Charlotte Scott gets in, though not in the text itself; only in a
>footnote reference to an article by her. Hypatia gets 7 lines, 4 of them on
>her death. At that point I gave up.
>
>Is this, how shall I call it, blind spot well known? It confirmed my wife's
>worst feelings about mathematicians and their historians.
>
>I have the 1968 edition; I presume that some of these are in the 2nd
>edition revised by Uta Merzbach, (1989) but the bibliography I looked at
>says of it: "Updates the bibliographies and augments the twentieth-century
>section of the 1st en of 1968. A reliable introduction", so it's not
>guaranteed!
>
>David Fowler
>
>
In Boyer's history as revised by Uta Merzbach, Sophie Germaine is given
some space on p 503. Sonia Kowalewski is given credit on p 518, and
mentioned again on p 560. Emmy Noether occurs in the index 4 times. p 595,
615, 623, 625, and given credit for a number of things. Hypatia has 3
index entries, although 2 of them only lead to her use for dating purposes.
Gordon Fisher gfisher@shentel.net