Spring 2018
Math 629: History of Mathematics

Sign up on Piazza to our class! Piazza Class page     An alternative link to Piazza.
Information for Week Ω   Week 14   Week 13   Week 12   Week 11   Week 10   Week 9   Week 8   Week 7   Week 6   Week 5   Week 4   Week 3   Week 2   Week 1   Week 0.
Information about your Term Paper.
Information about your Second Paper .
You will need to both email a .pdf to me at fjsteachmath@gmail.com, and submit it to turnitin.com.
Here is the information for our class:
Math 629 History of Mathematics     Class ID: 17442478     Class Enrollment Key: Sottile629
Information about Book Review.
Instructor: Frank Sottile  
  Office: None. This is a distance course. I am in Blocker 601K, though.
    This semester, I (Frank Sottile) am in College Station until April, which I will
    spend at the Institut Mittag-Leffler in Stockholm.
    I also have some travel (24 Feb–3 March Mexico, 6–10 March Texas and
    Oklahoma), which may cause delays in responding to posts and emails.
Teaching Email: fjsteachmath@gmail.com
    This is the second-best way to contact Frank, after Piazza.
WWW: www.math.tamu.edu/~sottile
Grader: Mehrzad Monzavi Mehrzad@math.tamu.edu
Use this only for turning in homeworks to Mehrzad, and to thank him.
Required Texts: Mathematics and its History, Third edition, by John Stillwell.
  It is possible to download a free version of the text through the TAMU library.
Men of Mathematics by E.T. Bell.
  There are many editions and versions, it does not matter which one you get.
  I will also assign readings from some on-line sources, such as
  Prof. Allen's on-line class notes.
  Another resource is The University of St. Andrew's
  MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, particularly its
  resource page on the History of Mathematics.
Additional Materials: There is significant content about mathematics and its history
  on the web, and many, many accessible books on the subject.
  Professor Fulling's list of other general histories of mathematics.
Course Forum: We will be using Piazza as a forum for class discussion.
          For technical prolems with that site email team@piazza.com
Course webpage: www.math.tamu.edu/~sottile/teaching/18.1/629.html
On forms of address:
Not only is it always my preference to be called by my first name, Frank, it also makes sense that you as graduate students should do so. You are bona-fide adults, many with professional qualifications, and I believe that leaving honorifics at the door of our classroom facilitates discourse.
Course Description
Major events in the evolution of mathematical thought from ancient times to the present, the development of various important branches of mathematics, including numeration, geometry, algebra, analysis, number theory, probability, and applied mathematics.
How this course will be run
Each week, I will assign reading, from Stillwell, as well as on-line sources. I will write weekly guides, as well as help to moderate our class forum on Piazza. Most weeks, I will assign homework, which will be submitted directly to our grader, Mehrzad Monzavi Mehrzad@math.tamu.edu (he is a TAMU graduate student), who will mark it and return it to you.
There will be three written assignments: a book review, a short paper, and a term paper. These will be submitted both to turnitin.com and to me in .pdf.
These papers are the major forms of assessment in this class, reflecting that History of Mathematics is a hybrid of mathematics and the humanities. I will also give credit to participation in the on-line discussion through Piazza. This will be in the form of extra credit, up to 10% of course credit. A value of having the community of scholars that is a University is interaction with one's peers.
Grading system and due dates:   Weekly assignments   Mondays at 11:59 PM       200
Book Review   Wednesday February 14       100
Short Paper   Wednesday March 28       100
Term Paper   Tuesday May 8       200
Short papers The first paper will be a book review (about 1000 words long), and the second a position paper in which you advocate a point of view on a topic to be assigned. The second paper is expected to be about the same length. This length guideline is to help you to choose to take the time to make a well-thought-out argument, and to signal that this need not be so all-consuming. You will submit them both to turnitin.com as well as send me a .pdf. I will mark them for writing quality, both form and content.
Term Paper This should be significantly longer (2500-3000 words), so that you can properly develop your topic. I will want you to have a topic chosen by early April.
I have a long-standing interest in mathematics history, including biography. I read Bell's Men of Mathematics in High School, and many, many others since. I first taught this course last year, largely following my colleagues at TAMU who have taught this course previous semesters.
Most notably Prof. Allen created this course and developed extensive on-line notes on the history of mathematics, some of which we will be using. Here are links to the most recent time that other faculty have taught this. Prof. Fulling 2015,   Prof. Allen 2010,   Prof. Geller 2005.
Last modified: Sun Apr 22 20:05:58 CEST 2018