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Questions tagged [math-history]

Use this tag for questions concerning history of mathematics, historical primacies of results, and evolution of terminology, symbols, and notations. Consider if History of Science and Mathematics Stack Exchange is a better place to ask your question.

The tag is intended to be used for questions concerning the history of mathematics, historical primacies of results, and evolution of specific terminologies, symbols and notations. Please keep in mind that, for pure historical purposes, it may well be a better to ask your question on the dedicated History of Science and Mathematics site instead.

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What did "logarithm" initially mean?

I just read that logarithms were not initially defined in terms of their inverse relationship to exponential functions (and that Euler was the first to develop them in this way). So how were they initially defined? All I could find on an (admittedly…
user142299
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Why do different countries/regions have different methods of counting large numbers?

When we start counting large quantities of $10's$, the number system varies by country/region: Europe/US: $10^3$ (thousand, million, billion are all multiples of $10^3$) Japan/China/Korea: $10^4$ (万, 億, 兆 are all multiples of $10^4$) India: $10^5$…
jmac
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What's the intuition behind definition of chaotic function?

I read books A First Course in Discrete Dynamical Systems by Richard A. Holmgren and An Introduction to Chaotic Dynamical Systems by Robert L. Devaney. I want to understand which concepts of "chaos" lead mathematicians to place these three…
Hoseyn Heydari
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Mathematical logic and foundations of mathematics in the 20th century

I would like some references regarding the foundations of mathematics in the 20th century, and mathematical logic, e.g. (1) I want to understand what happened to the foundation, what originated the transition from Russell's logicism to the ZFC…
Ricardo
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History of the Basel problem

Why were the people of the $18$th century interested in the Basel problem? (The Basel problem asks for the value of $\sum\limits_{n=1}^{\infty}\frac{1}{n^2}$).
Timotej
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History Question re Euler's Constant $\gamma$

What used to be be called "Euler's Constant" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eulers_constant) is now frequently called the "Euler-Mascheroni Constant". I have tried to find out what contribution Mascheroni made that merited his name being added to…
gjh
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History of infinite series representations of $\sin(x)$ and $\cos(x)$

When did the famous infinite series representations for $\sin(x)$ and $\cos(x)$ came about? To be specific when did people realise that the ratio of the two sides of a right triangle with one angle being the size of $x$ radians can be expressed as a…
Timotej
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Why the name "umbilic"?

Umbilic points are points on a surface at which the principle curvatures of the surface are equal. "Umbilic(al)" refers to the navel/belly button. But why do we call these points so? What about the surface is reminiscent of a belly button at these…
kevin
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History of the Enneper Surface

I was just wondering whether anyone could tell me more about the Enneper surface and its history (why it is important historically in the development of mathematics), or where to go in order to learn more. Also, while reading Wikipedia, I saw the…
kevin
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Need help locating a paper

One of the references of the paper Paulo Régis C. Ruffino, A Criticism on "A Mathematician's Apology" by G. H. Hardy (arXiv:1112.4499 [math.HO]) is: Vershik, A. M. – A Dangerous Joke, The Mathematical Intelligencer, Vol.20 no 2 1989 But neither the…
Anonymous
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History Of Algebra

Did the Indians invent algebra which was taken by Arabs and introduced by them to Europe as their own invention? Or did the Arabs invent algebra?
bandicoot12
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Borel's result on transcendence measure

In "Sur la nature arithmétique du nombre e" (Comptes rendus de l'Académie des Sciences 128 (1899), 596-9) Borel presented his result on transcendence measure for e. This can be restated as follows: For any positive $\varepsilon$ and for any…
Pavel Francírek
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Reference for Hilbert numbers

I've been studying a little bit of number theory, and during such studies I came across this interesting reference to Hilbert numbers, that is, numbers of the form $4n +1$. My question is a purely historical one: since they are called Hilbert…
Nagase
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Who was the first person to construct the real numbers by Cauchy sequences in $\mathbb{Q}$

Who was the first person to construct the real numbers by Cauchy sequences in $\mathbb{Q}$? Was it Cauchy himself?
user133457
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Why we do division in those steps told, and who invented division?

i know how to divide but i dont quit understand why we use those steps told in schools. like for example ____ 3/450 150 quotient 3 ----- 15 15 ------ 000 could someone please tell me why we do these steps is there any other method…
abdul raziq
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