Perceptions of mathematics and its history

BSHM Bulletin 21.3 was devoted to Victorian mathematics, and in particular to those mathematicians and statisticians who created and promoted the new mathematical ideas of Victorian Britain and Ireland. The present issue of the Bulletin again focuses on the nineteenth century but now from a very different perspective: from the point of view of those who were on the receiving end of mathematics and mathematical education. The article by Nikos Kastanis gives new insights into the methods and politics of mathematics education in Greece in the 1830s, while Alexander Karp's article offers personal recollections by poets and novelists of mathematical education in Russia during roughly the same period. A further exploration of mathematics in contemporary fiction is offered by Mel Bayley, whose article in this issue is based on the lecture she presented at Research in Progress, on Dickens' views on statistics. Add to these Judith Grabiner's paper, also given at Research in Progress, on dispelling myths in mathematics, and a common theme emerges of ‘perceptions of mathematics’, often from those who are outside or on the fringes of the subject as well as those who do it for a living. The Bulletin welcomes these articles as offering new perceptions not only of mathematics itself, but of how one may go about exploring its history, and of the richness of cross-disciplinary material that is available to us.

Jackie Stedall