New from Springer - European Mathematical Society Publishing ...

Communicating mathematics:
a historical and personal journey
Robin Wilson
Robin Wilson at his inaugural lecture.
This article is adapted from the author’s recent inaugural
lecture as Professor of Pure Mathematics at the
Open University, UK.
My topic is ‘Communicating mathematics’: something we
all try to do through our various teaching activities and
publications.
I was fi rst directed to think about what this involves
by a 1990 examination paper for an Open University history
of maths course, which I was studying as a part-time
OU student. While sweating it out in the exam room I
saw Question 15 that began: Describe some of the ways
in which mathematicians have communicated their results
to each other. My enjoyment in answering this question
has led me over the past eighteen years to think about
the various ways in which we communicate mathematics
– to our students, to our colleagues, and to the general
public.
I won’t be able to cover every form of communication
we use, but here are some ways that maths has been
The spoken word
Feature
propagated over the centuries. As you can see below, I’ve
divided my presentation into two main parts: the spoken
word, on everything from lectures and TV broadcasts
to casual conversations in the corridor, and the written
word, on everything from research papers and books to
newspaper articles and websites. In each part I’ll try to
give both a historical and a personal account, with a wide
range of examples covering 4000 years.
Part I: The spoken word
Inaugural lectures
It seems appropriate to begin with inaugural lectures,
which historically seem to be mainly of two types: those
that present and explain original research in a wider context
than is usually possible, and others (such as this one)
that are more of an expository nature.
An example of the latter was that of Christopher
Wren, appointed at age 27 to the Astronomy Chair at
Gresham College, who noted that London was particularly
favoured with so general a relish of mathematicks
and the liberal philosophia in such measure as is hardly
to be found in the academies themselves and concluded
by enthusing that Mathematical demonstrations being
built upon the impregnable Foundations of Geometry
and Arithmetick are the only truths that can sink into
the Mind of Man, void of all Uncertainty; and all other
Discourses participate more or less of Truth according as
their Subjects are more or less capable of Mathematical
Demonstration.
An example of the former type of inaugural lecture
was G. H. Hardy’s 1920 presentation as Savilian Professor
of Geometry in Oxford. Hardy was interested in an old
number theory result of Edward Waring, that every positive
whole number can be written as the sum of at most
inaugural lectures fi lms and plays classroom teaching
casual conversations TV documentaries tutorials and classes
university seminars radio programmes video- and audio-tapes
maths society meetings summer schools podcasts
talks to high schools competitions conference talks
The written word
research monographs popular books exams and assignments
clay tablets and papyri e-mail messages conference proceedings
correspondence research papers newspaper articles
manuscripts the internet correspondence texts
EMS Newsletter March 2009 15