Mathematics and its Public Spheres: Distribution, Transformation, and Reception of Mathematical Knowledge beyond the Disciplinary Discourse in Germany, 1871-1960

该项目旨在分析在社会、文化和政治变化的背景下，德国对数学思维方式的接受、适应和拒绝的话语。因此，它集中于在学术领域之外传播数学知识的方法，而到目前为止，这些方法很少被考虑。研究的重点是对交流过程的调查，旨在将数学知识和方法传递给具有不同资历和社会背景的非数学家群体。这项工作的基础是一批涉及数学的德语出版物。将特别关注研究数学家队伍中的作者。我们还想考察数学知识向非数学家的传播对数学家学科话语中数学内容的分类和评价的影响。一方面，1871年至1960年德国数学发展的特点是，该学科成功地获得了自然科学、技术科学和社会科学许多领域的基础交叉学科资源的地位。另一方面，数学研究的兴趣主要集中在抽象的现代数学概念上，这些概念对于非数学家来说是很难获得的。由于这些特殊的紧张关系，而且由于19世纪中叶以来关于科学、媒体和公共领域(科普)之间关系的争论，数学内容的传播和数学研究的合法化变得越来越困难。因此，社会话语已经成为对数学知识及其与科学发展的相关性的批评。因此，上述传播过程开辟了一个重要的、迄今很少被探索的研究领域，这一领域超越了数学史，因为它也有助于科学传播领域，并有助于理解几个学科的数学化进程。因此，该项目结合了数学史、社会史、媒体史以及科学社会学的各个方面，具有跨学科的特点。

The project aims to analyze discourses about the acceptance, adaptation, and rejection of mathematical modes of thought in Germany within the context of social, cultural and political change. Thus, it concentrates on ways of distributing mathematical knowledge beyond the academic realm, which have up to now rarely been considered. The research focus is on the investigation of communication processes, which were intended to convey mathematical knowledge and methods to groups of non-mathematicians with varied qualifications and social backgrounds. The basis for this is a selection of German-language publications with reference to mathematics.Special attention will be paid to authors from the ranks of research mathematicians. In particular, we also want to examine the impact that the communication of mathematical knowledge to non-mathematicians had on the classification and the evaluation of mathematical contents in the disciplinary discourse of mathematicians.On the one hand it is characteristic for the development of mathematics in Germany between 1871 and 1960, that the discipline succeeds in gaining the status of a fundamental cross-disciplinary resource for many fields of the natural, technical and social sciences. On the other hand, mathematical research interests focus mainly on concepts of abstract modern mathematics, which are difficult to access for non-mathematicians. Due to these special tensions, but also as a consequence of the controversy on the relations between science, media and the public sphere (popular science) since the middle of the 19th century, the communication of mathematical contents and the legitimation of mathematical research become increasingly difficult. As a result, the societal discourse has become critical of mathematical knowledge and its relevance for the development of the sciences. Such misgivings have prevailed ever since.Thus, the communication processes described above open an important, up to now scarcely explored research area, which is important beyond the history of mathematics because it also contributes to the field of science communication and helps to understand the process of mathematisation of several academic disciplines. Accordingly, in combining aspects of the history of mathematics, social history, and the history of media as well as of the sociology of science, the project is of interdisciplinary character.