In 1892, Eliakim Hastings Moore accepted the task of building a mathematics department at the University of Chicago. Working in close conjuction with the other original department members, Oskar Bolza and Heinrich Maschke, Moore established a stimulating mathematical environment not only at the University of Chicago, but also in the Midwest region and in the United States in general. In 1893, he helped organize an international congress of mathematicians. He followed this in 1896 with the organization of the Midwest Section (...) of the New York City-based American Mathematical Society. He became the first editor-in-chief of the Society's Transactions in 1899, and rose to the presidency of the Society in 1901. (shrink)

This volume, honoring the renowned historian of science, Allen G Debus, explores ideas of science - `experiences of nature' - from within a historiographical tradition that Debus has done much to define. As his work shows, the sciences do not develop exclusively as a result of a progressive and inexorable logic of discovery. A wide variety of extra-scientific factors, deriving from changing intellectual contexts and differing social millieus, play crucial roles in the overall development of scientific thought. These essays represent (...) case studies in a broad range of scientific settings - from sixteenth-century astronomy and medicine, through nineteenth-century biology and mathematics, to the social sciences in the twentieth-century - that show the impact of both social settings and the cross-fertilization of ideas on the formation of science. Aimed at a general audience interested in the history of science, this book closes with Debus's personal perspective on the development of the field. Audience: This book will appeal especially to historians of science, of chemistry, and of medicine. (shrink)

Cette étude retrace l’évolution de la série de « Colloquium lectures » de l’American Mathematical Society (AMS) dès sa création en 1896 jusqu’au début de la deuxième guerre mondiale. Ces cours constituent une importante innovation dans l’échange mathématique aux États-Unis. Ils ont servi à la fois à porter la communication mathématique à un haut niveau et à organiser plus efficacement une communauté nationale de mathématiciens.