21–24 Jan 2016: 6th winter workshop on history of mathematics
Mathematics and society:
How mathematics contributes to the quality of life
Second announcement with call for papers is available here (in PDF).
Final programme with abstracts is available here (in PDF).
This annual meeting series traditionally strives to support interdisciplinary debate and explore various approaches to history of mathematics. In our effort to show mathematics as an indispensable part of our culture, this time we are focusing on how mathematics can improve the daily life of people. Rather than simply juxtaposing two contradictory claims, namely that “mathematics is all around us” or that “real mathematics is almost wholly useless” (G.H. Hardy), we propose to explore how mathematics influences people’s lives both directly and indirectly.
Mathematics is frequently said to have contributed to developments in technology, notably in fields like aerodynamics and computing. On another level, doing well in mathematics was, since the industrial revolution, thought to imply the possibility of getting a better job, earning one’s bread in a less mundane way, for example as a civil engineer as opposed to a bricklayer. On yet another level, actuarial mathematics allowed people financial security even during times of bad luck. More recently, mathematics and statistics have permeated economics as well as a wide range of scientific fields from biology through medicine to psychology and sociology.
In the interdisciplinary tradition of the winter workshops in the history of mathematics, we invite contributions approaching the theme from the inside (mathematics) as well as from the outside (society), depending on the background of the researcher.
The workshop is supported by institutional cooperation project: "Interdisciplinary education of junior historians of mathematics" within the Scholarship Programme CZ07 from the Norway.
