Yes. However, this shows that Ranke's dicta about describing what really
happened rests on a theological assumption -- "every epoch is immediate to
God," which may or may not worry some people. Also, to say that "its [the
epoch's] value rests not at all on what it produces, but on its own
existence" leaves open some questions about how an historian realizes or
approaches the goal of describing an epoch's characteristics without being
guided or prejudiced by what the epoch produced.
>Actually, as was pointed out by Armin Hermann (Professor of the history of
>Natural sciences and Technology, University of Stuttgart) "Die
>Wissenschaftsgeschiche betrachtet bewusst auch untergegangene
>Denkvorstellungen. Heutige Wertmassstaebe duerfen nicht in die Vergangenheit
>projiziert werden; der Historiker muss vielmehr versuchen, jede Zeit
>unabhaengig von der spaeteren Entwicklung zu verstehen." This quotation is
>from the Begleitwort, p. XIII, of the book: Istva/n Szabo/: Geschichte der
>mechanischen Prinzipien und ihrer wichtigsten Anwendungen, Birkhaeuser,
>1976. This text is written in the spirit of 'How did we get here?' From
>the very beginning of my own historical research I was put on the right
>track (as I feel about it) by the conception of Leopold von Ranke applied
>to the history of mathematics. So I welcome the interpretation of the
>notion of history (of mathematics) given by the wellknown historian of
>mathematics Prof. Grattan-Guinness in the above quotation from his latest
>book.
Similarly, how does one go about avoiding projection of today's standards
into the past? It's easy to do something about this. For example, one
would have to brave, indeed foolhardy, to try to hold Euler to today's
standards of proof concerning, for example, infinite series, as required
even from undergraduates. However, what about, for example, questions of
what an historian chooses to study about the past work of mathematicians?
You remark below something about policies of publishers. Is this related
to the question of what historians choose to write about? Would you say
that Sophie Germain is absent from the unrevised edition of Boyer's book
because of pressure from a publisher? Are you also saying later in the
next paragraph that what some (or maybe all?) historians of mathematics
should do is actually read what we have left of what Sophie Germain did,
and evaluate it in the context of the way the theory of shells developed up
to, say, Kirchhoff? If so, would you be guided in interpreting what Sophie
Germain did by what Kirchhoff did later, and perhaps even what some others
have done later, up to our own time?
Gordon Fisher gfisher@shentel.net
>Next, I should like to refer to some e-mails complaining about lack of
>mention in Boyer, particularly in relation to Sophie Germain. Those
>reference texts, even the notable ones, are produced according to the
>particular circumstances of the current publisher; it does not matter
>whether it is any board (consisting of scientists as with MAA) or anyone
>else. Without knowledge of the particular policy of the publisher such
>references are only of little value. According to Sophie Germain or any
>other female mathematician one should look at the writings of these
>mathematicians. This had been done by Szabo/ according to Sophie Germain in
>his above mentioned book on mechanics; in chapter IV (History of the linear
>theory of elasticity for homogenous and isotropic materials), part D
>(History of the theory of thin shells) there are 8 sections in relation to
>this subject beginning with (2) the acoustics by Ernst Florens Friedrich
>Chladni, after it, (3) the theory of shells by Jacob II Bernoulli, (4)
>Chladnis stay at Paris and the price competition (<Donnez la the/orie des
>surfaces e/lastiques et la comparez a\ l'expe/rience>) of the French Academy
>of Sciences, (5) the theory of shells by Sophie Germain (partial solution),
>(6) the theory of shells by Kirchhoff (complete solution), ... To read this
>(German written) book needs some training in the mathematics of theoretical
>mechanics. Kirchhoff was able to complete the theory of shells because the
>tress tensor (discovered by Cauchy and critical with this theory) and line
>integrals (Integralsaetze von Gauss und Green: the transfomation of an
>integral around a simple closed path into an integral over the included
>region of the plane) were commonly familiar with Kirchhoff, but not with
>Sophie Germain. When examining the price competition Lagrange pointed to
>the fact, that the complete solution of the problem needed new mathematical
>methods: the Integralsaetze of Gauss and Green unknown during that time.
>
>Gerhard Warnecke
>
>