Michael S. Mahoney

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Michael Sean Mahoney (born June 30, 1939 in New York City , † July 23, 2008 in Princeton , New Jersey ) is an American mathematician and computer scientist .

Life

Mahoney graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor's degree in 1960 ( magna cum laude ) and received his doctorate from Princeton University in 1967 in the history of science with Thomas S. Kuhn (The royal road: the development of algebraic analysis from 1550–1650). He also studied with Kurt Vogel at the University of Munich two years after completing his bachelor's degree before starting his dissertation in the history of science program at Princeton, newly established by Charles Gillispie. In 1965 he became an instructor at Princeton University and in 1980 professor of history.

He was a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (whose Conference Board he was a member from 1987), the IEEE, and the History of Science Society.

Act

Mahoney wrote a biography of Pierre de Fermat as a mathematician, in which he presented Fermat's mathematical work not from a later point of view, but in the context of his contemporaries. Since Fermat relies almost exclusively on his own writings (there is only one publication during his lifetime) and the correspondence with contemporaries, the biography was based primarily on the interpretation of Fermat's writings. The first edition found a famous review by André Weil , but it was praised by others such as Derek Thomas Whiteside and welcomed as the long overdue biography of Fermat as a mathematician. A book on Christian Huygens was in preparation upon his death and he published on Isaac Newton , Isaac Barrow , René Descartes . One theme was the transition from geometric to algebraic ways of thinking in early analysis. In addition to mathematics and natural science in the early modern period, especially the 17th century, he also dealt with computer history. His interest in computers came from his student days at the end of the 1950s, when he also worked as a programmer.

He is not to be confused with the computer scientist Michael W. Mahoney (Stanford University).

Jed Z. Buchwald was his assistant.

Fonts

  • Biography of Fermat in Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  • The mathematical career of Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665) , Princeton University Press, 1973, 2nd edition 1994
  • Histories of Computing , Harvard University Press 2011 (edited by Thomas Haigh)

Some essays:

  • Barrow's mathematics: between ancients and moderns , in: M. Feingold (editor) Before Newton: The Life and Times of Isaac Barrow , Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1990, pp. 179-249 (Chapter 3)
  • The beginnings of algebraic thinking in the 17th century , Rete, Volume 1, 1971/72, pp. 15–31
  • Another Look at Greek Geometrical Analysis , Archive for History of Exact Sciences, Volume 5, 1968, pp. 318-348
  • Christiaan Huygens, The Measurement of Time and Longitude at Sea , in Henk Bos u. a. Studies on Christiaan Huygens , Lisse: Swets, 1980, pp. 234-270
  • Algebraic vs. Geometric Techniques in Newton's Determination of Planetary Orbits , in Paul Theerman, Adele F. Seeff (Editor) Action and Reaction: Proceedings of a Symposium to Commemorate the Tercentenary of Newton's Principia , Newark: University of Delaware Press; London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1993, pp. 183-205
  • Fermat's mathematics: proofs and conjectures , Science, Volume 178, 1972, pp. 30-36
  • The Beginnings of Algebraic Thought in the Seventeenth Century , in S. Gaukroger (editor): Descartes: Philosophy, Mathematics and Physics , Sussex: The Harvester Press / Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble Books, 1980, chapter 5
  • Infinitesimals and Transcendent Relations: The Mathematics of Motion in the Late Seventeenth Century , in DC Lindberg, RS Westman (editor): Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution , Cambridge University Press, 1990, chapter 12
  • The Mathematical Realm of Nature , in DE Garber et al. (Editor) Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy , Cambridge University Press, 1998, Volume 1, pp. 702-755
  • Huygens and the Pendulum: From Device to Mathematical Relation , in E. Grosholz, H. Breger (editor) The Growth of Mathematical Knowledge , Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000, pp. 17-39
  • Charting the Globe and Tracking the Heavens: Navigation and the Sciences in the Early Modern Era , in Brett Steele, Tamera Dorland (editor) The Heirs of Archimedes: Technology, Science and the Art of War through the Age of Enlightenment , MIT Press, 2005 , Pp. 221-230
  • Calculation - Thinking - Computational Thinking: Seventeenth-Century Perspectives on Computational Science , in: Rudolf Seising, Menso Folkerts , Ulf Hashagen (editor): Form, Zahl , ordnung . Studies in the history of science and technology. Festschrift for Ivo Schneider on his 65th birthday , Boethius: Texts and treatises on the history of mathematics and natural sciences, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2004
  • Drawing Mechanics , in Wolfgang Lefebvre (editor) Picturing Machines, 1400-1700 , MIT Press, 2004

A collection of his essays on the history of mathematics in the 17th century was published in Japanese (Mathematics in History, 1982, 2nd edition 2007). He also published a translation of Descartes ' Le Monde in 1979.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Life data according to American Men and Women of Science , Thomson Gale 2004
  2. ^ Mathematics Genealogy Project
  3. ↑ Bulletin AMS, Volume 79, 1983, pp. 1138-1149
  4. ^ Review in Zentralblatt für Mathematik
  5. ↑ And of the Middle Ages, he began as a Medievalist.
personal data
SURNAME Mahoney, Michael S.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mahoney, Michael Sean
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American mathematician historian
DATE OF BIRTH June 30, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH July 23, 2008
Place of death Princeton , New Jersey