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

• Applicants: Dr. Maria Remenyi; Professor Dr. Volker Remmert
• Subject Area: History of Science ; Mathematics ; Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2013 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 242382887

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.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants