Sciences, Philosophie, Histoire – UMR 7219, laboratoire SPHERE

mardi 31 mars
, 9:30 – 12:30

David Rowe (Gutenberg Univ., Mayence)
On the early works of Klein and Lie, 1869-1872.
The brief collaboration between Klein and Lie during these early years contains the germinating ideas for many of their later works. Both took inspiration from the works of Plücker, Clebsch, and Darboux in ways that have been little noticed before. Lie was by far the more creative thinker, but he had great difficulty working out his ideas in a comprehensible form. Klein thus wrote up some of Lie’s early papers, and in a few cases they published together, which was quite rare in those days. Drawing on Klein’s letters to Lie, I will attempt to clarify the nature of their relationship and gauge the importance of this early work for their subsequent research.

 !! mardi 7 avril, 9h30 à 12h30 !!, salle Rothko, 412B

Groupe de travail : sciences exactes : 1/2
2 séances communes avec le Groupe de travail des doctorants en histoire et philosophie de la physique

José Ferreiros (Univ. de Séville)
Unreasonable Effectiveness in Context : some historical remarks on Wigner’s famous 1960 paper.

mardi 13 avril, séance commune avec le séminaire Histoire & philosophie des mathématiques
, 14:00 – 17:00

David Rowe (Gutenberg Univ., Mayence)
On editing Mathematische Annalen, 1872-1928.
The founding of Mathematische Annalen by Alfred Clebsch (Göttingen) and Carl Neumann (Leipzig) created an important forum for mathematicians in Germany who stood outside the dominant centre in Berlin. Beginning in 1876, Felix Klein and Adolf Mayer served as its principal editors, complemented by Walther von Dyck in 1888. Later, in 1901, David Hilbert joined the Hauptredaktion, supported by Otto Blumenthal from 1905 onward. During these different periods, editorial policies differed greatly, though the Annalen had already by 1880 emerged as one of the leading journals under Klein’s guidance. Both Klein and Hilbert took a strong international orientation, a stance that was gradually undermined by the political activities of L.E.J. Brouwer, who joined the editorial board during the early war years. After describing various aspects of the editorial work behind the scenes, I will take up the tumultuous events of the 1920s that ultimately led to Brouwer’s ouster from the editorial board. My analysis suggests that Hilbert’s motivation for this action had little to do with the famous foundations debate that pitted Hilbert’s formalism against Brouwer’s intuitionism but rather that Hilbert felt compelled to act in order to counteract his rival’s political influence on the future direction of the journal.

mardi 5 mai !! après-midi, salle Rothko, 412B !!
, 13:00 – 16:30

Autour de Moritz Pasch (2/2)
Philippe Nabonnand (Archives Poincaré, Univ. de Lorraine)
Moritz Pasch, un empiriste chez les mathématiciens.

Jeudi 28 mai, 10:00 – 13:00, !! salle Kandinsky, 631 B !!

Groupe de travail : sciences exactes : 2/2
2 séances communes avec le Groupe de travail des doctorants en histoire et philosophie de la physique

Frédéric Brechenmacher (Ecole polytechnique)
Les Méthodes nouvelles de la mécanique céleste d’Henri Poincaré, témoin des interactions entre mécanique et algèbre au XIXe siècle.
L’approche de Poincaré sur le problème des trois corps a souvent été célébrée comme un point d’origine de l’étude des systèmes dynamiques et de la théorie du chaos. Cet exposé propose de porter un autre regard sur cette approche en analysant le rôle crucial qu’y joue une forme traditionnelle d’interface entre mécanique et algèbre par l’intermédiaire d’une équation particulière - l’ « équation à l’aide de laquelle on détermine les inégalités séculaires des planètes » -qui dévoile une culture mathématique spécifique au XIXe siècle.