G1ASOC -- Mathematics and Society

Lecture notes and other supporting materials from a module given by me for the Mathematics Department of Nottingham University from 1997 to 2007. Supplied as is, with no warranty as to their continued correctness! Use as you see fit, but please achnowledge this site if you publish or publicise this material.

Quick links:

• general
• aims, objectives and key skills
• outline
• reading
• lectures
• references
• bottom of page

General Information:

Assessment will be by a written examination of 1½ hours [50%] and by an extended essay [50%]. Late submission of the essay will attract the usual penalty of 5% per working day. More information about the essay will be distributed during the module.

Module aims, objectives and key skills

Objectives: At the end of the module, students should be aware of the major developments in mathematics over this period, be able to explain the influence of mathematics on the parallel development of physics and astronomy, and should know of examples of mathematics in art, music, literature, warfare and economic, social and political life.

Key skills: Background and historical awareness of the role and development of mathematics.

Outline of the Module

The Thursday lectures, Series A, will be about the history of applied mathematics. The lectures will correspond to the chronological development, and will be loosely based on the contributions of some important mathematician or a group of them. However, we will not look merely at the biographies of these key figures, but also at the wider scene. Through to the 19th century, the theme is classical mechanics; then the scope broadens, both to the large-scale phenomena in which relativity is important and to the small-scale phenomena of quantum mechanics.

The Friday lectures, Series B, will be devoted to Mathematics and X, for various X. Sometimes the theme is `What has mathematics contributed to X?', sometimes it is `What has X contributed to mathematics?', sometimes the relationship is more symbiotic. Again, where it seems appropriate, there will be a focus on key figures, rather than an attempt at broad and total coverage. See below for more detail.

Reading

• Makers of Mathematics, by Stuart Hollingdale, Penguin, 1991 [section QA28 in the Library, 3 copies on short or one week loan].
• Mathematics in Western Culture, by Morris Kline, Penguin, 1972 [section QA93 in the Library, 4 copies, 3 of them on short or one week loan].

Many of the mathematicians and other aspects of mathematics that we'll be looking at have their own biographies and histories. It can also be extremely illuminating to look at some of the original texts; Galileo, Newton and Einstein [to pick three at random] writing on mechanics have a resonance and a quality that other writers lack, even though much of the actual content now seems outmoded. [There is a recent book by Stephen Hawking that includes extensive material from these and others; more generally, there is a history of mathematics by Fauvel and Gray that includes lots of original material.]

There is another source of supplementary information [besides the textbooks mentioned above, and any other private reading which you may (and are encouraged to!) do] which you should use in conjunction with lecture notes; this is the Web. There are several archives of historical and other material relating to mathematics on the Web; the most important are referenced from the Web version of this document [see below]. You can find others either by following links from these archives or by conducting your own searches.

This document is at URL

http://cuboid.me.uk/anw/G1ASOC

Lectures

Please let me know if you discover mistakes, or if there is information that you would like to see added, or if there is material that you have discovered that should be given a wider circulation.

* this lecture has usually been on a Monday, and therefore a Bank Holiday.

ANW

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