Karine Chemla (born 8 February 1957) is a French historian of mathematics and sinologist who works as a director of research at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS). [1] She is also a senior fellow at the New York University Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. [2] She was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society in 2019.
Chemla studied at Paris Diderot University and the École normale supérieure de jeunes filles, earning an agrégation in mathematics in 1978 and a diploma of advanced studies in 1979. [3] At this time, her work was in pure mathematics. However, in 1980, influenced by the work of Ilya Prigogine, she won a Singer–Polignac scholarship to travel to China and study the history of Chinese mathematics. [4] Returning to France, she earned her Ph.D. in the history of mathematics from Paris 13 University in 1982, and began working for CNRS at that time. [3]
Chemla's research interests include Chinese mathematics, 19th century French geometry, and the theory of the history of mathematics. [1]
With Guo Shuchun, Chemla published in 2004 a critical edition and translation into French of The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art . [4] [5] [6] [7] She is also the co-editor, with Cécile Michel, of Mathematics, Administrative and Economic Activities in Ancient Worlds (Springer, 2020). [8]
Chemla was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1998. [9] [10] She became a member of the Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in 2004, [11] of the International Academy of the History of Science in 2005, [3] and of the Academia Europaea in 2013. [12] In 2013–2014 she was the holder of the Sarton Chair of History of Science at Ghent University. [13] She served as president of the European Society for the History of Science 2014–2016. [14] She is the 2020 winner of the Otto Neugebauer Prize [15] and the 2021 winner of the LMS-BSHM Hirst Prize.
The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art is a Chinese mathematics book, composed by several generations of scholars from the 10th–2nd century BCE, its latest stage being from the 1st century CE. This book is one of the earliest surviving mathematical texts from China, the others being the Suan shu shu and Zhoubi Suanjing. It lays out an approach to mathematics that centres on finding the most general methods of solving problems, which may be contrasted with the approach common to ancient Greek mathematicians, who tended to deduce propositions from an initial set of axioms.
Pierre Léon Boutroux was a French mathematician and historian of science. Boutroux is chiefly known for his work in the history and philosophy of mathematics.
Paul Tannery was a French mathematician and historian of mathematics. He was the older brother of mathematician Jules Tannery, to whose Notions Mathématiques he contributed an historical chapter. Though Tannery's career was in the tobacco industry, he devoted his evenings and his life to the study of mathematicians and mathematical development.
Claire Voisin is a French mathematician known for her work in algebraic geometry. She is a member of the French Academy of Sciences and holds the chair of algebraic geometry at the Collège de France.
Étienne Ghys is a French mathematician. His research focuses mainly on geometry and dynamical systems, though his mathematical interests are broad. He also expresses much interest in the historical development of mathematical ideas, especially the contributions of Henri Poincaré.
Séraphin Couvreur was a French Jesuit missionary to China, sinologist, and creator of the EFEO Chinese transcription. The system devised by Couvreur of the École française d'Extrême-Orient was used in most of the French-speaking world to transliterate Chinese until the middle of the 20th century, after what it was gradually replaced by pinyin.
Joseph Warren Dauben is a Herbert H. Lehman Distinguished Professor of History at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He obtained his PhD from Harvard University in 1972. His PhD thesis The early development of Cantorian Set Theory was supervised by Dirk Struik.
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Viviane Baladi is a mathematician who works as a director of research at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) in France. Originally Swiss, she has become a naturalized citizen of France. Her research concerns dynamical systems.
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Ilsetraut Hadot in Berlin, is a philosopher and historian of philosophy who specialised in Stoicism, Neoplatonism and more generally in Ancient Philosophy.
Annick Mito Horiuchi is a French historian of mathematics and historian of science. She is a professor at Paris Diderot University, where she is associated with the Centre de recherche sur les civilisations de l'Asie orientale (CRCAO).
Christine Proust is a French historian of mathematics and Assyriologist known for her research on Babylonian mathematics. She is a senior researcher at the SPHERE joint team of CNRS and Paris Diderot University, where she and Agathe Keller are co-directors of the SAW project headed by Karine Chemla.
Catherine Jami is a French historian of mathematics specializing in Chinese mathematics. She is a director of research for the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), affiliated with the Centre for Studies on Modern and Contemporary China (CECMC) at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris. She is the former president of the Association française d’études chinoises and of the International Society for the History of East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine.
Hélène Bellosta-Baylet was a French historian of mathematics specializing in mathematics in medieval Islam.
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