Page 82 - 8th European Congress of Mathematics ∙ 20-26 June 2021 ∙ Portorož, Slovenia ∙ Book of Abstracts
P. 82
OTTO NEUGEBAUER PRIZE WINNER
On how mathematicians’ historical and philosophical reflections have
been essential to the advancement of mathematics: A historical
perspective
Karine Chemla, chemla@univ-paris-diderot.fr
SPHERE, CNRS and Université de Paris, France
The presentation will focus on an episode in which the historical and philosophical work carried
out by mathematicians played a decisive role in overcoming a mathematical difficulty and in-
troducing an idea that had a major impact on future developments in mathematics. The episode
in question is the introduction in 1845 by Ernst Eduard Kummer (1810-1893) of the "ideal fac-
tors" of what he called the "complex numbers". The first public presentation of this concept by
Kummer in 1846 allows us to trace the impact on this breakthrough of the historical and philo-
sophical reflections that Jean-Victor Poncelet (1788-1867) and Michel Chasles (1793-1880) de-
veloped while giving shape to what would become projective geometry. This episode suggests
the benefits that could derive from a more systematic inclusion of historical and philosophical
approaches in the practice of mathematics, as an integral part of it.
80
On how mathematicians’ historical and philosophical reflections have
been essential to the advancement of mathematics: A historical
perspective
Karine Chemla, chemla@univ-paris-diderot.fr
SPHERE, CNRS and Université de Paris, France
The presentation will focus on an episode in which the historical and philosophical work carried
out by mathematicians played a decisive role in overcoming a mathematical difficulty and in-
troducing an idea that had a major impact on future developments in mathematics. The episode
in question is the introduction in 1845 by Ernst Eduard Kummer (1810-1893) of the "ideal fac-
tors" of what he called the "complex numbers". The first public presentation of this concept by
Kummer in 1846 allows us to trace the impact on this breakthrough of the historical and philo-
sophical reflections that Jean-Victor Poncelet (1788-1867) and Michel Chasles (1793-1880) de-
veloped while giving shape to what would become projective geometry. This episode suggests
the benefits that could derive from a more systematic inclusion of historical and philosophical
approaches in the practice of mathematics, as an integral part of it.
80
