Transmission of Mathematical Ideas: 2000 Years of Exchange and Influence from Late Babylonian Mathematics to Early Renaissance Science

SES 99-10964 - Joseph W. Dauben (Lehman College， CUNY)，“数学思想的传播：从巴比伦晚期数学到早期文艺复兴科学的2000年交流和影响”，该奖项为将于2000年5月8-12日在意大利贝拉吉奥会议中心举行的国际研讨会提供部分支持。本次研讨会的其他支持由洛克菲勒基金会、国际数学史委员会和国际数学联盟提供。本次会议旨在研究2000年数学思想跨文化传播的历史，这一历史在地理上跨越了主要的丝绸之路，并将古代地中海与东亚，特别是印度和中国的数学成就联系起来。组织者计划召集一批具有不同语言能力的国际专家和学者，将注意力集中在文本、问题、方法和例子上，组织者预计这些将有助于解决有关数学知识起源和传播的许多悬而未决的问题。例如，在不同的文本中——从古代中国到中世纪的欧洲——或多或少出现了相同的问题，而且经常使用相同的例子、参数和方法，这怎么可能解释呢？如果几乎相同的问题和程序没有在不同文化之间独立地重新发现，那么它们是如何传播的，产生了什么影响？贝拉吉奥会议的目的是将注意力集中在早期的数学著作上，特别是那些在中国、印度、阿拉伯/伊斯兰世界以及中世纪晚期/欧洲文艺复兴时期的数学著作上，以探索直接和间接影响的证据，可能的联系，以及在一个特定地点和时间设计的问题或方法找到其他点的各种方法，这些问题或方法往往在地点和时间上都很遥远。在贝拉吉奥举办这样的会议的价值在于，会议中心提供了一个安静，反思的氛围，方便地容纳来自欧洲和北美以及来自近东和远东或北非的学者。Bellagio还将为密集的会议提供一个轻松的环境，在这里个人的专业知识可以集体分享，预先分发的论文可以集体讨论，以期出版一本专门研究数学思想如何跨越时间和文化迁移的书。

SES 99-10964 - Joseph W. Dauben (Lehman College, CUNY) - "Transmission of Mathematical Ideas: 2000 Years of Exchange and Influence from Late Babylonian Mathematics to Early Renaissance Science"This award provides partial support for an International Symposium to be held at the Bellagio Conference Center, May 8-12, 2000, Bellagio, Italy. Other support for this Symposium is being provided by the Rockefeller Foundation, the International Commission on History of Mathematics, and the International Mathematical Union.This conference is designed to investigate the 2000-year history of the transmission of mathematical ideas across cultures, geographically a history that spans the major silk routes and bridges the mathematical achievements of the ancient Mediterranean and those of East Asia, especially India and China. Its organizers plan to convene a group of international experts, scholars with diverse language abilities, to focus attention on texts, problems, methods and examples that, collectively, the organizers anticipate will help to resolve many open questions about the origins and dissemination of mathematical knowledge.How is it possible, for example, to account for the fact that in various texts - from ancient China to medieval Europe - more or less the same problems arise, often using the same examples, parameters, and methods? If virtually identical problems and procedures were not rediscovered from culture to culture independently, then how were they transmitted, and to what effect?The purpose of the Bellagio meeting is to focus attention on early mathematical works, especially those in China, India, the Arabic/Islamic world, and the late Middle Ages/Renaissance in Europe, in order to explore evidence of direct and indirect influences, possible connections, and various means by which the problems or methods devised in one particular place and time found their way to other points, often very distant in both place and time. The value of holding such a conference at Bellagio is that the Conference Center provides a quiet, reflective atmosphere conveniently located to accommodate both scholars from Europe and North America as well as those coming from the Near and Far East, or from North Africa. Bellagio will also provide a relaxed setting for an intensive conference where individual expertise can be collectively shared, and pre-circulated papers can be collectively discussed in anticipation of publishing a book devoted specifically to the problem of how mathematical ideas have migrated across time and cultures.