Contents of Folders for Paper 1

For the first paper, students were to work with 1 other person. I assigned groups to each mathematician based on similarities in previous coursework, mathematical maturity, and interests. I handed out folders containing the following relevant articles and students were directed to find additional resources through web searches that we started in the class computer lab. For the math, I assigned the topic for each mathematician. The goal of paper 1 was for students to learn how to summarize material from many sources, learn how to write on a focused math topic and learn how to communicate their work to the rest of the class. For the other papers, students will choose their own mathematician, find their own references, and will decide what mathematical topic to focus on (with my help, of course!).

Maria Agnesi

  • The Living Witch of Agnesi http://www.astr.ua.edu/4000ws/witch-of-agnesi.html
  • The Witch of Agnesi: A Lasting Contribution from the First Surviving Mathematical Work Written by a Woman - A commemoritive on the 200th anniversary of her death, by S. I. B. Gray and Tagui Malakyan, The College Mathematics Journal, Vol 30, No 4, September 1999, p. 258-268.
  • Maria Agnesi and Her "Witch" in Maor's Trigonometric Delights, p. 110-111.
  • Maria Gaetana Agnesi by C. Truesdell, Archive for History of Exact Science 40 (1989( p. 113-142.
  • Corrections and Additions for "Maria Gaetana Agnesi", Archive for History of Exact Science 43 (1991) p. 385-386.
  • The Witch of Agnesi-Exorcised, by Hubert C. Kennedy, The Mathematics Teacher, 62(1969) p. 480-482.
  • The Names of the Curve of Agnesi by T.F. Mulcrone, American Mathematical Monthly, 64, Issue 5 (5/1957), p. 359-361.
  • The Witch of Agnesi Exorcised, by Hubert C. Kennedy, The Mathematics Teacher, October 1969, p. 480-482.
  • Properties of the witch of Agnes-application to fitting the shapes of spectral lines, by Roy C. Spencer, Journal of the Optical Society of America, 30 (1940) p. 415-419.

    Benjamin Banneker

  • MAD page http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/special/banneker-benjamin.html
  • From Egypt to Benjamin Banneker: African origins of false position solutions, by Beatrice Lumpkin, in Vita Mathematica, Historical Research and Integration with Teaching, edited by Ronald Calinger, MAA Notes No 40, p. 279-289.

    Elbert F. Cox

  • MAD web page http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/PEEPS/cox_elbertf.html
  • Black Men and Women in Mathematical Research, by Patricia Clark Kenschaft, Journal of Black Studies, Vol 18 No. 2, December 1987 170-190, p. 170-174.
  • Elbert F. Cox: An Early Pioneer, by James A. Donaldson and Richard J. Fleming, The MAA Monthly, 107, February, 2000, 105-128.
  • The Polynomial Solution of the Difference Equation, by Elbert Frank Cox, Tohoku Math J., 39 (1934), p. 327-348.

    Thomas Fuller

  • MAD page http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/special/fuller_thomas_1710-1790.html
  • African Slave and Calculating Prodigy: Bicentenary of the Death of Thomas Fuller, by Fauvel and Gerdes, Historia Mathematics 17 (1990), 141-151.
  • The Great Mental Calculators: The Psychology, Methods, and Lives of Calculating Prodigies, Past and Present, by Steven B. Smith, 1983, p. 178-180.
  • On Mathematics in the History of Sub-Saharan Africa, by Paulus Gerdes, Historia Mathematica 21 (1994), 345-376, p. 345, 361-2, 366, 373.

    Sophie Germain

  • http://www.chaucer.ac.uk/subjects/mathemat/mathematician.htm
  • http://www.utm.edu/research/primes/glossary/SophieGermainPrime.html
  • http://www.utm.edu/research/primes/lists/top20/SophieGermain.html
  • History of Fermat's Last Theorem in Mathematics: From the Birth of Numbers, by Jan Gullberg, p. 333-334.
  • Germain's General Approach, in Mathematical Expeditions: Chronicles by the Explorers, Springer Verlag, UTM, by Laubenbacher and Pengelley, p. 192 - 200.
  • The First Case of Fermat's Last Theorem is True for all Prime Exponents up to 714,591,416,091,389, Andrew Granville and Michael Monagan, Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, 306, Issue 1 (Mar 1988), 329-359, p. 329.
  • Sophie Germain. An Essay in the History of the Theory of Elasticity, Joseph Dauben, American Mathematical Monthly, 92, Issue 1 (Jan 1985) 64-70.
  • Fermat's Last Theorem: Its History and the Nature of the Known Results Concerning it, H.S. Vandiver, American Mathematical Monthly, 53, Issue 10 (Dec 1946), 555-578.

    Sonia Kovalevsky

  • A Russian childhood/ Sofya Kovalevskaya; translated, edited, and introduced by Beatrice Stillman; with an analysis of Kovalevskaya's Mathematics by P.Y. Kochina, Springer-Verlag, 1978, p. 236 - 244.
  • S. V. Kovalevskaya's Mathematical Legacy: The Rotation of a Rigid Body, by Roger Cooke, in Vita Mathematica, Historical Research and Integration with Teaching, edited by Ronald Calinger, MAA Notes No 40, p. 177-190.
  • S. Kovalevsky: A Mathematical Lesson by Karen D. Rappaport, American Mathematical Monthly, Volume 88, Issue 8 (10/81), p. 564-574.
  • Modern dynamics and classical analysis, Michael Tabor, Nature, Vol 310, 26 July 1984, p. 277-282.

    Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Fullani al-Kishnawi

  • MAD web page http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/muhammad_ibn_muhammad.html
  • On Mathematics in the History of Sub-Saharan Africa, by Paulus Gerdes, Historia Mathematica 21 (1994), 345-376, p. 345, 360, 369, 375.
  • Africa Counts: Number and Pattern in African Culture, by Claudia Zaslavsky, p. 138-151, 297-298
  • Magic squares web page http://www.millersv.edu/~deidam/m301/china2.htm
  • Partial translation from AMUCHMA-NEWSLETTER-16 of
    Sesiano, Jacques: Quelques methodes arabes de construction des carr s magiques impairs (Some Arabic construction methods of odd magical squares), Bulletin de la Societe Vaudoise des Sciences Naturelles, 1994, Vol. 83.1, 51-76
    General construction methods of magic squares appeared in the countries of Islam in the 9th century, and the science of magic squares arrived there at its zenith in the 11th and 12th centuries. From the 13th century, magical and divinatary applications began to replace of mathematical study. Classical construction methods survived, however, in later treatises of a certain level, as in part of a work by Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Fullani al-Kishnawi (born in the north of Nigeria and died in Cairo in 1741), on the construction of magic squares of odd order. It is this chapter of the book of al-Kishnawi that is analysed in the paper. In relationship to the contents of the chapter, the author of the paper states that "We find here the explanation of different ways of disposing the numbers in the squares, and with diverse forms of magic. Although the majority of these constructions are already known from the classical period, they are often explained or applied in an easier way; time has, to a certain degree, served as a filter, and the reported methods are those whose use has been preserved by their simplicity or elegance. One finds also, at the end of the extract, the explanation of a topic that is new in relation to classical treatises (without doubt due to its magic use): that of magical squares of which one square is left unoccupied. All topics are presented by al-Kishnawi with great clarity. He certainly seems to be a person of worth: the biographical note dedicated to him by the historian al-Jabarti (1753-1825/6) in his "Chronicles" (Al-Jabarti 1888-89, II, 39-42) are full of praise for his capacities and merits. Al-Kishnawi seems even to have been the authority in the new field of squares with holes, as he is mentioned elsewhere by the same al-Jabarti in relation to the properties of those squares of order 5".

    Emmy Noether

  • Emmy Noether, 1882-1935/Auguste Dick; translated by Heidi Blocher, Boston, Basel, Birkhauser, c1980. p. 153-159.
  • Biographies of Mathematicians-Emmy Amalie Noether
  • Emmy Noether, by Clark H. Kimberling, American Mathematical Monthly, Volume 79, Issue 2 (Feb, 1972), 136-149.
  • A Brief History and Survey of the Catenary Chain Conjectures, L.J. Ratliff, Jr., American Mathematical Monthly, Volume 88, Issue 3 (Mar, 1981), 169-178. p. 169-170.
  • A History of Algebra From al-Khwarizmi to Emmy Noether, by van der Waerden, p. 244-251.
  • http://www.maths.lancs.ac.uk/~greenrm/weird/noeth.html
  • Definition of ring, Abstract Algebra 2nd ed by Dummit and Foote, p. 243-5, 260, 637-8, 646.

    Dudley Weldon Woodard

  • MAD web page http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/PEEPS/woodard_dudleyw.html
  • UPenn web page http://www.math.upenn.edu/History/bh/text99.html
  • Black Men and Women in Mathematical Research, by Patricia Clark Kenschaft, Journal of Black Studies, Vol 18 No. 2, December 1987 170-190, p. 170-174
  • On two-dimensional analysis situs with special reference to the Jordan curve-theorem, by D. W. Woodard, Fundamenta Mathematicae 13 (1929), 121-145.
  • The Characterization of the Closed N-Cell, by D. W. Woodard, Transactions of the American Mathematical Society 42 (1937), no. 3, 396-415.
  • Definitions and examples of simple closed curves, and statement of Jordan curve theorem.