Re: [HM] Marx and mathematics (was: Sophie Germain & Carl Boyer)
Roger Cooke (cooke@emba.uvm.edu)
Sat, 14 Nov 1998 13:51:26 -0500 (EST)
Marx' mathematical manuscripts were edited and published by Konstantin
Alekseevich Rybnikov and some other Soviet scholars many years ago. The
American expert on them was, I think, named Kennedy, and he used to be
in Rhode Island. Perhaps he is out there on the list somewhere? I heard
that he moved to San Francisco. Marx found some expressions of the
dialectic in mathematics; specifically the transition from specific
formulas for derivatives to generic ones, such as the product rule seemed
to him to mirror the dialectic. (As you can tell, I have failed to follow
this argument.)
Roger Cooke