Beyond the Learned Academy

Abstract

The tremendous growth of the mathematical sciences in early modern England was reflected contemporaneously in an increasingly sophisticated level of practical mathematics in fields such as merchants’ accounts, instrument making, teaching, navigation, and gauging. Mathematics in many ways shaped the knowledge culture of the age, extending through the Industrial Revolution to the nineteenth century. While theoretical developments in the history of mathematics have been made the topic of numerous scholarly investigations, in many cases based around the work of key figures such as Huygens, Leibniz or Newton, practical mathematics, especially from the seventeenth century onwards has been largely neglected. This volume, comprising sixteen specially commissioned essays by leading authorities in the history of mathematics, covers the full range of mathematical practice from the seventeenth century through to the middle of the nineteenth century. It coincides with increased historical interest in the social and cultural milieus in which pre-modern and modern science were carried out, and will facilitate and promote further investigations on the practice of mathematics itself.