June Barrow-Green

Oscar II's prize competition and the error in Poincaré's memoir on the three body problem

Le memoire de Poincare (H.) fut publie dans une revue scientifique, comme le gagnant du prix international Oscar II en 1890. Or, peu de temps apres cette publication, Poincare corrigea une erreur dans son memoire, et fit la decouverte des points homocliniques

‘Much necessary for all sortes of men’: 450 years of Euclid's Elements in English

This talk, given at the BSHM Textbooks Meeting in September 2005, is in two parts. First it looks at some of the English editions of the Elements published over the last 450 years. Then, to show how various editors differed in the way they approached the text, it looks at their treatments of Pythagoras’ Theorem (Book I, Proposition 47). Finally, it draws attention to some texts from the Fauvel Collection that either derive from the Elements or are closely connected with it.

Emigration of Mathematicians and Transmission of Mathematics: Historical Lessons and Consequences of the Third Reich

This conference provided a focused venue to explore the intellectual migration of mathematicians and mathematics spurred by the Nazis and still influential today. The week of talks and discussions (both formal and informal) created a rich opportunity for the cross-fertilization of ideas among almost 50 mathematicians, historians of mathematics, general historians, and curators. Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): 01A60. Introduction by the Organisers The talks at this conference tended to fall into the two categories of lists of sources and historical arguments built from collections of sources. This combination yielded an unexpected richness as new archival materials and new angles of investigation of those archival materials came together to forge a deeper understanding of the migration of mathematicians and mathematics during the Nazi era. The idea of measurement, for example, emerged as a critical idea of the conference. The conference called attention to and, in fact, relied on, the seemingly standard approach to measuring emigration and immigration by counting emigrants and/or immigrants and their host or departing countries. Looking further than this numerical approach, however, the conference participants learned the value of measuring emigration/immigration via other less obvious forms of measurement. 2892 Oberwolfach Report 51/2011 Forms completed by individuals on religious beliefs and other personal attributes provided an interesting cartography of Italian society in the 1930s and early 1940s. Observing the length of time a Minister of Education in Spain remained in office over three-quarters of a century provided a unique assessment of the educational and scholarly values (or lack thereof) in Spain before, during and after World War II. Mapping the geographical paths followed by refugees on a single globe and looking for patterns offered still further insight into how mathematicians and mathematics traveled. For all these proactive forms of measurement, one speaker urged participants to use caution when measuring emigration and immigration in terms of gain and loss. Measuring the anguish of physical emigration in the form of a painting, such as Frans Henriques’ “Travel to Sweden. October 1943,” provided a distinctly human evaluation of this moment in history and highlighted another meaningful insight from the conference. As one speaker put it, “this was an intensely personal moment in history.” In the words of a Jewish mathematician of the time, “sudden and arbitrary unemployment was the first step to serious personal catastrophe.” At this “moment in history,” personal and professional lives were inextricably linked. The talks and discussions underscored the role of choice in emigration and immigration. Here again, the conference called attention to more obvious forms of choice in the form of, say, the choices of Karl Menger to leave Austria or Emil Artin to leave Germany. Those individual choices, however, depended on institutional choices in the host countries. Other talks pointed out the more subtle choices of Arnold Scholz that ultimately prevented his emigration from Germany or the lingering choices of university officials that resulted in disastrous consequences for mathematicians hoping to immigrate. Economic interests sometimes motivated these administrative choices and yielded their own consequences. From the outset, the conference organizers placed an especial emphasis on gaining a better understanding of refugees from countries other than Germany. A collection of talks on issues related to emigration and immigration in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Spain and Denmark (“a temporary refuge”) helped achieve this aim. Even better, many of these talks were prepared and presented by young scholars in the field. The 46 conference participants came mainly from Europe and North America, among them five young researchers who participated as Oberwolfach Leibniz Graduate Students. The organizers are very grateful to the Leibniz-Gemeinschaft for this support. The staff of the Mathematische Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach was—as always—extremely supportive and helpful. We thank them for providing excellent working conditions. The conference participants especially appreciated the interesting mix of people and talks we enjoyed during our week at the MFO. The last talk of the conference discussed the difference between one grain, one pile, and one heap of rice and raised The Danish title of Henriques’ 1952 painting is “Rejsen til Sverige. Oktober 1943.” The organizers would like to thank Henrik Kragh Sörensen for calling attention to this painting in his talk and for providing a translation of the title. Emigration of Mathematicians and Transmission of Mathematics 2893 the critical question of how one moves from the pile to the heap. This conference allowed participants to add to the pile, but not quite reach the heap, in terms of our understanding of migration and immigration in the Nazi era. Continued conversations and investigations will add to this perpetual progress. Finally, the organizers would like to thank the reporter, Craig Stephenson, for his excellent work with the abstracts which is evident in the coherence of the report and which was much appreciated by the authors. Emigration of Mathematicians and Transmission of Mathematics 2895 Workshop: Emigration of Mathematicians and Transmission of Mathematics: Historical Lessons and Consequences of the Third Reich

Euler as an Educator

While many people know Eulers great textbooks on algebra and the differential calculus, and his renowned Letters to a German Princess, they may not be so familiar with his arithmetic text, or his texts relating to the instruction of the navy and the military, or indeed his proposal for the restructuring of the Gymnasium (preparatory school) in St Petersburg. These texts comprise a fraction of Eulers prodigious output but taken together they show the breadth of Eulers interest in education, an interest that stretched across a variety of subjects and a variety of students. This article is based on a talk given at the BSHM Euler anniversary meeting in July 2007.