Mathematics in narratives of Geodetic expeditions |
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| Authors: | Terrall Mary |
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| Institution: | Department of History, UCLA, 6265 Bunche Hall, Box 951473, Los Angeles, California 90095-1473, USA. |
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| Abstract: | 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. |
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