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History of Mathematics in America before 1900

A History of Mathematics in America before 1900 was written by David Eugene Smith and Jekuthiel Ginsburg and published by The Mathematical Association of America in cooperation with The Open Court Publishing Company in 1934. It is one of a series of monographs entitled, The Carus Mathematical Monographs.

The book is organized historically, covering the uses of mathematics, the development of mathematics instruction and research, and discussion of the important names in mathematics in America from the earliest settlement to the year 1900. The book is divided into four chapters, each chapter dealing with a particular time period in chronological order. The authors closely relate the development of mathematics in this country to the development of education and instruction of math, with particular emphasis on innovators in the field. Of special interest are the details concerning the uses of math in the early days and how new knowledge developed, often to meet a practical need.

In the sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries the occupations of the earliest settlers tended to correspond with the need for skill in handling numbers. Most workers were farmers, artisans, or tradespeople. In these vocations the primary need was the ability to add and subtract numbers, rarely to multiply or divide (Smith & Ginsberg 1-2). Much trade was in the form of barter, and fathers passed to their sons simple arithmetic skills.

-Mathematics appealed to the sea-faring men and to the clergy. The navigators needed to find their way from port to port by means of the compass and maps. Early voyagers found their way, also, by computing latitude and longitude with simple angle measurement. It was in the field of the clergy, however, that the science of mathematics had its beginning in the new world. The clergy were the most highly educated of the people. They needed accurate calendars for business purposes, for calculating the dates of Easter an...

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History of Mathematics in America before 1900. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 08:35, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1705214.html