Mathematical Reconstructions Out, Textual Studies In: 30 Years in the Historiography of Greek Mathematics [1998]

Ken Saito

A chapter in From Alexandria, Through Baghdad, 2014, pp 17-23 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Thirty years ago, at the end of the sixties, the history of Greek mathematics was considered an almost dosed subject, just like physics was at the turn of the twentieth century. People felt that they had constructed a definitive picture of the essence of Greek mathematics, even though some details remained unclear due to irrecoverable document losses. Critical editions had been established, mainly by Heiberg, while two of the great scholars of the history of Greek mathematics, Tannery and Zeuthen, had built on this material. Then, the standard book [Heath 1921] brought much of this material together. Through his discoveries in Mesopotamian mathematics, Neugebauer was led to think that he had given substance to legends about the Oriental origin of Greek mathematics. Originally published in Dutch in 1950, the book [van der Waerden 1954] reflected scholars' self-confidence in this period.

Keywords: Exact Science; Textual Study; Music Theory; Greek Mathematic; Algebraic Interpretation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-642-36736-6_2

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783642367366

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-36736-6_2

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().