Analysis and Geometry between Foundational Issues
| ISBN | 978-88-3613-100-6 |
|---|---|
| Numero in collana | 03 |
| Collana | Mathemata. Materiali di storia e filosofia della scienza / ISSN 2724-0223 |
| Autore | Giovanni Ferraro |
| Pagine | 160 |
| Anno | 2020 |
| In ristampa | No |
| Descrizione | Analysis and Geometry between Foundational Issues |
This volume contains five contributions that focus on the theme of analysis and synthesis in mathematics. The first two contributions deal with the evolution of the notion of analysis in mathematics in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the relationship between the method of first and ultimate ratios and the modern theory of limits. The third contribution is devoted the eighteenth century notion of a function and its hidden geometric roots. Chapter 4, which has been written together with Giovanni Capobianco, discusses some historiographical interpretations of the so-called Neapolitan synthetic school of mathematics and investigates the reasons for which the historical memory of the synthetic school was lost in the thirty years following the unification of Italy. Finally, in the last part of the book, the origin of the first modern definition of the sum of divergent series, due to Ernesto Cesàro, is investigated.
Giovanni Ferraro works at the University of Molise, Italy. His primary area of research is the history of mathematics. He has published papers in various journals, including Historia Mathematica, Archive for History of Exact Sciences, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Studia Leibnitiana, and Annals of Science. He has also published six monographs, among them: The rise and development of the theory of series up to the early 1820s (Springer, 2008), Bernardino Baldi e il recupero del pensiero tecnico-scientifico dell’antichità (Edizioni dell’Orso, 2008), and Filosofia e pratica della matematica nell’età dei Lumi (Aracne, 2014).