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To cite this article: Victor Byers (1982) Why study the history of mathematics?, International
Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, 13:1, 59-66, DOI:
10.1080/0020739820130109
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INT. J. MATH. EDUC. SCI. TECHNOL., 1982, VOL. 13, NO. 1, 59-66
by VICTOR BYERS
Department of Mathematics, Concordia University,
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
This paper advances the proposition that there is need to rethink the function
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1. Introduction
Apparently there exists universal agreement that the history and the teaching of
mathematics are somehow related. This agreement includes the understanding that
prospective teachers of mathematicsexcept those expected to teach at the
university levelshould take courses in the history of mathematics.
"Recommendations for the inclusion of some study of history in teacher-training
programs are to be found in many studies and committee reports in many countries"
[1]. In fact, it is the author's impression that teachers and prospective teachers
constitute the bulk of the students taking introductory courses in the history of
mathematics. But the agreement breaks down when it comes to the question of what
such courses should contain. There is even less agreement on what teachers should
do with the history they have learned.
fact, no one has ever suggested that a child should be kept away from the concept of
zero until he has completed the study of Greek geometry in which this concept does
not appear.
Thus the genetic principle cannot be taken literally. Moreover, it is hard to
visualize a mechanism which would account for a correspondence between the
cognitive process of attainment of mathematical concepts and their evolution as
cultural products.
It was possibly for these reasons that Polya has formulated the genetic principle
in a weak as well as a strong form and sounded a warning: "The genetic principle is a
guide to, not a substitute for, judgement" [3]. The weaker form of the principle may
be paraphrased to assert that a child's ability to acquire mathematical knowledge is
likely to be enhanced if its presentation is examined in the light of historical
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brought with it the need to list a number of reasons why a teacher should study the
history of mathematics. Indeed Jones classifies the 'whys' to be answered by
studying and teaching history into chronological, logical (motivational), and
pedagogical whys. The first type of why goes all the way from answering such
questions as "why there are sixty minutes in a degree or an hour" to "triggering]
discussions about the necessity and arbitrariness of definitions and of undefined
terms" [1].
On the other hand Grabiner, like Grattan-Guinness, focuses on the use of
history in university mathematics. She discusses the "value of the history of
mathematics ...for the mathematicianin teaching and understanding mathe-
matics" [10]. Though her approach is less detailed than Jones's approach she, too,
lists three ways in which a historical background can help teach mathematics. These
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During the first half of this century mathematicians were looking for an approach
that would unify mathematics. Mathematics educators, for their part, were in search
of 'unifying principles' that would lend coherence to school mathematics.
Professional mathematicians achieved a better understanding of their discipline
through the reconstruction of various branches of mathematics on set-theoretic
foundations. As a result, such leading mathematicians as Bourbaki entertained the
hope "to see mathematical structures arise naturally from a hierarchy of
sets . . . " [ 1 3 ] . Under the circumstances, it is scarcely surprising that sets became the
'unifying principle' of the 'new mathematics'. Indeed in educational practice the
hope became a 'fact'. Thus Papy declared:
Any teacher of mathematics has to start by recognizing one fundamental
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fact: The mathematics of today has regained its unity in the universality of the
set [14].
Ten years later no competent mathematician would advance such a claim.
Moreover, regardless of the value of set theory in systematizing higher mathematics,
the effect on school mathematics of the study of 'set concepts and terminology' has
been rather disappointing. The point is, however, that the unity of mathematics has
not been demonstrated by set theory, by the concept of abstract structure, or by any
other means. If anything, the reverse is the case:
The axiomatic method, for a time considered the answer to all problems
about foundations, has revealed its Achilles heel in the logic and set theory that
it presumes. Stripped to its essentials, it is seen to be ultimately dependent
upon the particular logic and set theory employed. And neither of these is a
unique thing [15].
Attempts to bring together the main branches of mathematics have continued
(e.g., category theory); but is is now generally accepted that a final systematization
will never be reached. There is no doubt that mathematics possesses an inherent
unity; nonetheless, it is equally evident that, in the final analysis, the unity of
mathematics rests on its history. This is one of the things that a teacher should learn
from studying this history.
paradoxes in set theory. Thus some historians answer the above question in the
affirmative.
Crowe takes the position that revolutions do not occur in mathematics, but do
occur in such areas as mathematical nomenclature, symbolism, and standards of
rigour as well as in meta-mathematics [17]. Such a position becomes easier to grasp if
one distinguishes between the content of mathematics and its form.
According to certain formalist definitions, mathematics has no content. Such
views, however, are of dubious value to mathematics education. We shall assume
therefore that, like other disciplines, mathematics exhibits two aspects: content and
form. Mathematics is usually classified as a formal science because form is more
prominent in present-day mathematics than it is in other sciences; indeed
mathematical form is often borrowed by other branches of knowledge. To a first
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rectangle, (3) in terms of 'area under the curve' in calculus, and (4) via measure
theory. It would take a hardened formalist indeed to claim that the early terms of this
sequence may be omitted.
It will be observed that the above progression corresponds to two others; (a) the
varieties of mathematical objects whose areas the student has to find, and (b) the
historical order in which the concept of area has developed. Evidently mathematical
form undergoes major transformations in response to changes in contentwhile the
latter are often the result of previous changes in form. Correspondingly, a student's
understanding of mathematics becomes transformed as he learns new forms
provided this learning results from and leads to an expansion of his knowledge of
content. This of course is a statement of the genetic principle taken in the large.
A teacher has to teach and a student has to learn both aspects of mathematics, and
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the former at least has to appreciate the relationship between the two. Needless to
say, such an appreciation requires a historical perspective.
7. A model of history
It is unrealistic to present a teacher or, prospective teacher, with a 700-page
treatise on the history of mathematics; even if he reads it, he is not likely to see the
wood for the trees. He needs a manageable model of history. Let us see if such a
model cannot be provided by dividing the history of mathematics into periods in
accordance with characteristics exhibited by the dominant mathematical form.
Babylonian place-value notation notwithstanding, form was no more prominent
in Oriental pre-Hellenic mathematics than it is, say, in present-day physics. Indeed
it seems to be generally agreed that for the first two : and-a-half thousand years of its
history, mathematics was an empirical science. Nor does anyone doubt that for the
next thousand years of Greek ascendancy mathematics was first a demonstrative and
then an axiomatic science. The next period may be taken for our purposes to be the
long stretch from 400 to 1600 A.D. This was a period of computation, first in
arithmetic and then in algebra; the characteristic feature of mathematical form was
no longer the syllogism but arithmetical and algebraic symbolism. One can say that
during this period mathematics lost its axiomatic but not its demonstrative
character.
There is no question that the discovery of analytic geometry 'changed the face of
mathematics'; but it is harder to evaluate, in the terms we have been using, the status
of mathematics of the 17th and 18th centuries. One may note, however, that not only
were the most important parts of mathematics without an axiomatic base but the
discipline re-acquired some of the characteristics of an empirical science.
Mathematicians maintained close connections with experimental and observational
sciences, were more interested in results than in rigour, and used numerical
verification and incomplete induction to justify their findings. Yet one could scarcely
say that during this period mathematics ceased, to be a demonstrative science.
Perhaps, borrowing from Viete, one should call the mathematics of the period an
analytic science. In the 19th century, in 1872 to put a date on it, mathematics became
an axiomatic science once again.
Possibly it is the transitions between the above periods, rather than the
conventional 'crises', that should be thought of as revolutions in mathematics. In any
case, if our thumb-nail sketch proves anything, then it proves that it is impossible to
understand the nature of mathematics except through its history. The mere
classification of mathematics as a field of knowledge requires reference to history!
66 Why study the history of mathematics?
References
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[1] JONES, P. S., 1969, The history of mathematics as a teaching tool, Historical Topics for
Mathematics Classroom, edited by A. E. Hallenberg, N C T M 31st Yearbook, pp. 1-17.
[2] BYERS, V., 1976, Ontario Math. Gaz., 15, 32.
[3] POLYA, G., 1965, Mathematical Discovery II (Wiley), pp. 132-133.
[4] GRIFFITHS, H. B., and HOWSON, A. G., 1974, Mathematics: Society and Curricula
(Cambridge), pp. 158-9.
[5] MALIK, M. A., 1980, Int. J. Math. Educ. Sci. Technol., 11, 489.
[6] THOM, R., 1973, Proceedings of the Second International Congress on Mathematical
Education, Cambridge, pp. 194209.
[7] MOISE, E. E., 1965, Mathl Monthly, 72(4).
[8] COONEY, T . J., DAVIS, E. J., and HENDERSON, K. B., 1975, Dynamics of Teaching
Secondary School Mathematics (Houghton Mifflin Co.), pp. 80-81.
[9] GRATTAN-GUINNESS, I., 1973, Int. J. Math. Educ. Sci. Technol., 4, 421.
[10] GRABINER, J. V., 1975, Historia Mathematica, 2, 439.
[11] MAY, K. O., 1975, Historia Mathematica, 2, 439.
[12] LAKATOS, I., 1963, Br. J. Phil. Sci., 14, 1.
[13] THOM, R., 1971, Am. Scientist, 59, 695.
[14] PAPY, G., 1965, Maths Teacher, 58, 345.
[15] WILDER, R. L., 1969, Development of modern mathematics, Historical Topics for
Mathematics Classroom, edited by A. E. Hallenberg N C T M , 31st Yearbook,
pp. 460-476.
[16] BOYER, C. B., 1968, A History of Mathematics (Wiley), p. 598.
[17] CROWE, M. J., 1975, Historia Mathematica, 2, 161.
[18] BYERS, V., and HERSCOVICS, N., 1977, Mathematics Teaching, 81, 24.
[19] STRUIK, D. J., 1967, A Concise History of Mathematics (Dover), p . 94.
[20] GINSBURG, H., 1977, Children's Arithmetic: The Learning Process (Van Nostrand),
pp. 121 and 90.