Tom Archibald,
Simon Fraser University,
Vancouver Canada:
World War I
and Mathematics in the United States
Following much
debate, the United States entered WWI only in March of
1917. The relatively brief episode of the war has not been seen by
historians as decisive for mathematical practice or for mathematicians
in that country. In this paper, we reassess the involvement of
mathematicians in the US war effort. This involvement included
research efforts, notably in ballistics and related numerical
analysis. It also saw very broadly-based activities to assist in
providing basic mathematical knowledge to new recruits, at a
juncture
when a national debate on the relation between research and
teaching was
taking place. The war appears to have seen the first
serious involvement
of mathematics and mathematicians with the federal
government, through a range of institutional structures including the
National Bureau of Standards, the National Research Council, and the
various military departments. It also sees mathematicians interfacing
with industrial concerns. A corps of individual mathematicians
retained these involvements following the war, and some of these were
later key players in the much better-known WWII activities. The paper
describes joint research with Della Fenster and Deborah Kent.
tirsdag, den 3.
november 2009,
kl. 17.00
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