Women in Mathematics (book)

Last updated

Women in Mathematics is a book on women in mathematics. It was written by Lynn M. Osen, and published by the MIT Press in 1974.

Contents

Topics

The main content of the book is a collection of eight biographies of women mathematicians, arranged chronologically, [1] with an additional introductory chapter and two closing chapters. The mathematicians profiled here are Hypatia, Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Émilie du Châtelet, Caroline Herschel, Sophie Germain, Mary Somerville, Sofya Kovalevskaya, and Emmy Noether. [2]

One of the two closing chapters features shorter profiles of additional women mathematicians, "rather curiously selected" and "mostly working in America". [3] The scientists mentioned in this chapter are Mary W. Gray, Mina Rees, Lise Meitner, Maria Goeppert Mayer, Charlotte Scott, Hanna Neumann, Maria Pastori, Maria Cibrario, Jacqueline Lelong-Ferraud, Paulette Libermann (misspelled Liberman), Sophie Piccard (misspelled Picard), Olga Taussky-Todd, Emma Lehmer (misspelled Lermer), Julia Robinson, Elizabeth Scott, Grace Hopper and Dorothy Maharam Stone.

Reception

Although reviewer Philip Peak found the book "interesting and useful", [1] and reviewer Florica T. Câmpan  [ ro ] writes that it is written in a pleasant style, [4] most reviewers were not as positive. Hardy Grant writes that Osen's profile of Hypatia has treated her "very badly" by being based primarily on a piece of fiction for children written in the early 20th century by Elbert Hubbard. [5] Reviewer R. P. Infante writes that "Osen does not seem to know much mathematics or its history", pointing to several errors in both. Infante also bemoans the book's "narrow" and "slipshod" scholarship, consisting of vague attributions to "some scholars" in the text of the work that "invariably" lead to the work of a single author, early 20th century writer John Augustine Zahm. [2] Reviewer Herbert Meschkowski  [ de ] suggests that Grace Chisholm Young should have been mentioned. [6] And reviewers Margaret Hayman and Edith Robinson both complain about the book's focus on its subjects' victimization by society, rather than either their personal lives and personalities or their mathematical accomplishments. [3] [7] Michael A. B. Deakin wrote, "Sadly, the standard of Osen's scholarship did not match the importance of her subject matter." [8]

Related Research Articles

Hypatia was a neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, then part of the Eastern Roman Empire. She was a prominent thinker in Alexandria where she taught philosophy and astronomy. Although preceded by Pandrosion, another Alexandrine female mathematician, she is the first female mathematician whose life is reasonably well recorded. Hypatia was renowned in her own lifetime as a great teacher and a wise counselor. She wrote a commentary on Diophantus's thirteen-volume Arithmetica, which may survive in part, having been interpolated into Diophantus's original text, and another commentary on Apollonius of Perga's treatise on conic sections, which has not survived. Many modern scholars also believe that Hypatia may have edited the surviving text of Ptolemy's Almagest, based on the title of her father Theon's commentary on Book III of the Almagest.

<i>Regular Polytopes</i> (book) Geometry book

Regular Polytopes is a geometry book on regular polytopes written by Harold Scott MacDonald Coxeter. It was originally published by Methuen in 1947 and by Pitman Publishing in 1948, with a second edition published by Macmillan in 1963 and a third edition by Dover Publications in 1973. The Basic Library List Committee of the Mathematical Association of America has recommended that it be included in undergraduate mathematics libraries.

This is a timeline of women in mathematics.

Michael Andrew Bernard Deakin was an Australian mathematician and mathematics educator. He was known for his work as a writer and editor of Function, a mathematics magazine aimed at high school students, and as a biographer of ancient Greek mathematician Hypatia. He won the B. H. Neumann award of the Australian Mathematics Trust in 2003 for his "rich and varied commitment to mathematics enrichment".

Maria Celina Dzielska was a Polish classical philologist, historian, translator, biographer of Hypatia, and political activist. She was a Professor of Ancient Roman History at Jagiellonian University.

<i>Viewpoints: Mathematical Perspective and Fractal Geometry in Art</i>

Viewpoints: Mathematical Perspective and Fractal Geometry in Art is a textbook on mathematics and art. It was written by mathematicians Marc Frantz and Annalisa Crannell, and published in 2011 by the Princeton University Press (ISBN 9780691125923). The Basic Library List Committee of the Mathematical Association of America has recommended it for inclusion in undergraduate mathematics libraries.

<i>Closing the Gap: The Quest to Understand Prime Numbers</i> Book on prime numbers

Closing the Gap: The Quest to Understand Prime Numbers is a book on prime numbers and prime gaps by Vicky Neale, published in 2017 by the Oxford University Press (ISBN 9780198788287). The Basic Library List Committee of the Mathematical Association of America has suggested that it be included in undergraduate mathematics libraries.

Complexities: Women in Mathematics is an edited volume on women in mathematics that "contains the stories and insights of more than eighty female mathematicians". It was edited by Bettye Anne Case and Anne M. Leggett, based on a collection of material from the Newsletter of the Association for Women in Mathematics, and published by Princeton University Press in 2005 (ISBN 0-691-11462-5).

<i>Taking Sudoku Seriously</i> 2011 book about sudoku

Taking Sudoku Seriously: The math behind the world's most popular pencil puzzle is a book on the mathematics of Sudoku. It was written by Jason Rosenhouse and Laura Taalman, and published in 2011 by the Oxford University Press. The Basic Library List Committee of the Mathematical Association of America has suggested its inclusion in undergraduate mathematics libraries. It was the 2012 winner of the PROSE Awards in the popular science and popular mathematics category.

<i>Power in Numbers: The Rebel Women of Mathematics</i> Book on women in mathematics

Power in Numbers: The Rebel Women of Mathematics is a book on women in mathematics, by Talithia Williams. It was published in 2018 by Race Point Publishing.

Sacred Mathematics: Japanese Temple Geometry is a book on Sangaku, geometry problems presented on wooden tablets as temple offerings in the Edo period of Japan. It was written by Fukagawa Hidetoshi and Tony Rothman, and published in 2008 by the Princeton University Press. It won the PROSE Award of the Association of American Publishers in 2008 as the best book in mathematics for that year.

Pioneering Women in American Mathematics: The Pre-1940 PhD's is a book on women in mathematics. It was written by Judy Green and Jeanne LaDuke, based on a long study beginning in 1978, and was published in 2009 by the American Mathematical Society and London Mathematical Society as volume 34 in their joint History of Mathematics series. Unlike many previous works on the topic, it aims at encyclopedic coverage of women in mathematics in the pre-World War II United States, rather than focusing only on the biographies of individual women or on collecting stories of only the most famous women in mathematics. The Basic Library List Committee of the Mathematical Association of America has strongly recommended its inclusion in undergraduate mathematics libraries.

Diophantus and Diophantine Equations is a book in the history of mathematics, on the history of Diophantine equations and their solution by Diophantus of Alexandria. It was originally written in Russian by Isabella Bashmakova, and published by Nauka in 1972 under the title Диофант и диофантовы уравнения. It was translated into German by Ludwig Boll as Diophant und diophantische Gleichungen and into English by Abe Shenitzer as Diophantus and Diophantine Equations.

<i>Making Mathematics with Needlework</i>

Making Mathematics with Needlework: Ten Papers and Ten Projects is an edited volume on mathematics and fiber arts. It was edited by sarah-marie belcastro and Carolyn Yackel, and published in 2008 by A K Peters, based on a meeting held in 2005 in Atlanta by the American Mathematical Society.

Polyominoes: Puzzles, Patterns, Problems, and Packings is a mathematics book on polyominoes, the shapes formed by connecting some number of unit squares edge-to-edge. It was written by Solomon Golomb, and is "universally regarded as a classic in recreational mathematics". The Basic Library List Committee of the Mathematical Association of America has strongly recommended its inclusion in undergraduate mathematics libraries.

A Topological Picturebook is a book on mathematical visualization in low-dimensional topology by George K. Francis. It was originally published by Springer in 1987, and reprinted in paperback in 2007. The Basic Library List Committee of the Mathematical Association of America has recommended its inclusion in undergraduate mathematics libraries.

A Biography of Maria Gaetana Agnesi, an Eighteenth-Century Woman Mathematician: With Translations of Some of Her Work from Italian into English is a biography of Italian mathematician and philosopher Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718–1799). It was written and translated by Antonella Cupillari, with a foreword by Patricia R. Allaire, and published in 2008 by the Edwin Mellen Press.

<i>The History of Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction</i>

The History of Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction is a book on the history of mathematics. Rather than giving a systematic overview of the historical development of mathematics, it provides an introduction to how the discipline of the history of mathematics is studied and researched, through a sequence of case studies in historical topics. It was written by British historian of mathematics Jackie Stedall (1950–2014), and published in 2012 as part of the Oxford University Press Very Short Introductions series of books. It has been listed as essential for mathematics libraries, and won the Neumann Prize for books on the history of mathematics.

A History of Mathematical Notations is a book on the history of mathematics and of mathematical notation. It was written by Swiss-American historian of mathematics Florian Cajori (1859–1930), and originally published as a two-volume set by the Open Court Publishing Company in 1928 and 1929, with the subtitles Volume I: Notations in Elementary Mathematics (1928) and Volume II: Notations Mainly in Higher Mathematics (1929). Although Open Court republished it in a second edition in 1974, it was unchanged from the first edition. In 1993, it was published as an 820-page single volume edition by Dover Publications, with its original pagination unchanged.

Math on Trial: How Numbers Get Used and Abused in the Courtroom is a book on mathematical and statistical reasoning in legal argumentation, for a popular audience. It was written by American mathematician Leila Schneps and her daughter, French mathematics educator Coralie Colmez, and published in 2013 by Basic Books.

References

  1. 1 2 Peak, Philip (October 1974), "Review of Women in Mathematics", The Mathematics Teacher , 67 (6): 545, JSTOR   27959837
  2. 1 2 Infante, R. P. (May 1976), "Review of Women in Mathematics", The American Mathematical Monthly , 83 (5): 391, doi:10.1080/00029890.1976.11994134, JSTOR   2318672
  3. 1 2 Hayman, Margaret (March 1976), "Review of Women in Mathematics", Mathematics in School, 5 (2): 35, JSTOR   30211553
  4. ↑ Câmpan, Florica T., "Review of Women in Mathematics", Mathematical Reviews (in French), MR   0497806
  5. ↑ Grant, Hardy (April 2009), "Who's Hypatia? Whose Hypatia do you mean?", Math Horizons , 16 (4): 11–15, doi:10.1080/10724117.2009.11974823, S2CID   119912254
  6. ↑ Meschkowski, H., "Review of Women in Mathematics", zbMATH (in German), Zbl   0304.01001
  7. ↑ Robinson, Edith (December 1974), "Review of Women in Mathematics", The Arithmetic Teacher, 21 (8): 705, JSTOR   41191145
  8. ↑ Deakin, Michael A. B. (2013), "Theano: the world's first female mathematician?", International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, 44 (3): 350–364, doi:10.1080/0020739X.2012.729614, S2CID   119647710
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.