Mathematics in Narratives of Geodetic Expeditions

Bibliographic Data

ID3330643
AuthorsMary Terrall (University of California, Los Angeles, corresponding author)
Year2006
Volume97
Issue4
Pages683-699
Publication date2006-12-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueIsis (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-1753 • E-ISSN: 1545-6994
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/509950
PMID17367005
OpenAlexW1995418707
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited4

In eighteenth-century France, geodesy (the measure of the earth's shape) became an arena where mathematics and narrative intersected productively. Mathematics played a crucial role not only in the measurements and analysis necessary to geodesy but also in the narrative accounts that presented the results of elaborate and expensive expeditions to the reading public. When they returned to France to write these accounts after their travels, mathematician-observers developed a variety of ways to display numbers and mathematical arguments and techniques. The numbers, equations, and diagrams they produced could not be separated from the story of their acquisition. Reading these accounts for the interplay of these two aspects--the mathematical and the narrative--shows how travelers articulated the intellectual and physical difficulties of their work to enhance the value of their results for specialist and lay readers alike

Art · Calculus (dental · Epistemology · Geodesy · Geodetic datum · Geography · History of mathematics · Linguistics · Literature · Mathematics education · Narrative · Reading (process · Statistics · Value (mathematics · Variety (cybernetics · Work (physics · Engineering · Historical and Literary Analyses · Historical and Literary Studies · History · History of Science and Natural History · Mathematics · Philosophy

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