The status of mathematics in sixteenth-century Europe

Abstract: At the dawn of the so-called scientific revolution, the mathematical sciences acquired a new status as the key to understanding the structure of reality in a way that contradicted Aristotelian physics and cosmology. This new role for mathematics did not come without controversy. In this talk I will explore some of these debates, placing them in philosophical, scientific and sociological contexts. I will begin with Copernicus’s statements in the Preface to De revolutionibus (1543) concerning the role of mathematics in revealing the harmony of the planetary system and end with Galileo’s statement in the Assayer (1623) that the Book of Nature is written in mathematical characters and his statement at the end of the first Day of the Dialogo sui due massimi sistemi del mondo (1632) that mathematics provides man with knowledge as certain as that available to God. As we shall see these statements, which characterise the scientific revolution, were controversial.

Mathematics

Audience: researchers in the topic

ANTLR seminar

Series comments: This is the Algebra, Number Theory, Logic and Representation theory seminar.