Papers by Sylvia Nickerson
Research in History and Philosophy of Mathematics, 2015
Several historians including Andrew Warwick, Joan Richards, and Tony Crilly have offered explanat... more Several historians including Andrew Warwick, Joan Richards, and Tony Crilly have offered explanations for why a stale culture of mathematics existed in nineteenth-century England. Nineteenth-century British culture did not generally regard mathematics as capable of failure, growth, or change. This paper argues that a significant contributing influence to this climate was book publishers, and the publisher Macmillan and Company in particular. From 1850 to 1900 Macmillan published hundreds of thousands of mathematical textbooks through industrialized book production. Macmillan distributed these pedagogical materials throughout the UK, Canada, the USA, Australia, India, and elsewhere. Motivated by profits from sales, and abetted by the efforts of their collaborator on mathematical subjects, Isaac Todhunter, Macmillan perpetuated a stale, Cambridge-centric image of mathematics among subsequent generations of mathematical learners in educational contexts around the world. How some of these books may have shaped the pedagogical experience of Canadian mathematician J. C. Fields during his high school and undergraduate education in mathematics is considered.
Identity in a Secular Age, 2020
Rethinking History, Science, and Religion
Canadian Medical Association Journal
MAJ will soon begin publishing graphic medicine articles in its Humanities section. Graphic medic... more MAJ will soon begin publishing graphic medicine articles in its Humanities section. Graphic medicine is a form of visual storytelling that explores narratives of the body, health care, healing and disability. This burgeoning area of medical humanities is part of growing popular interest in graphic storytelling generally. Over the past several decades, artists have expanded the "comics" genre to include themes once thought of as belonging solely to the arena of literature. Graphic medicine explores the emotional and moral dimensions of experience. Scientific medicine determines which facts, disease concepts or medical treatments are right or wrong. Graphic medicine, on the other hand, shows how patients and caregivers are complex and human. Inside these narratives, the reader is given the opportunity to reflect on how personal identity, power and authority, subjectivity, politics, culture and society affect the practice of medicine. Graphic medicine can challenge the conventional appearance of medicine by exploring what it feels like to do work in which life and death are at stake, or how it feels to live inside a compromised body. More often than not, the genre will push back against authoritative, official or sanitized written medical literature, exploring instead the subjective experience and emotional aspect of being a caregiver or patient.
Historia Mathematica, 2013
Russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies, 2008
Rethinking History, Science, and Religion, 2019
Examining flow of opinion between private and public spheres, this chapter reveals how publisher ... more Examining flow of opinion between private and public spheres, this chapter reveals how publisher John Murray brought Charles Darwin’s works before a certain public. It also reveals significant tensions between the men over evolution’s religious implications. While collaborating in publishing matters and finding commercial success, Darwin and Murray held significantly different religious beliefs. Unable to publicly contradict one of his most famous authors, Murray staged repeated anonymous attacks upon Darwin in his journal the Quarterly Review and in his book Scepticism in Geology (1877). Revealing the animus behind the appearance of harmonious collaboration, the book history and print culture methodology supports the complexity thesis, revealing no simple relationship between the scientific and religious worldviews.
In this interview Prof. Griffin discusses Russell’s views on religion, Russell’s concept of the s... more In this interview Prof. Griffin discusses Russell’s views on religion, Russell’s concept of the scientist, government control of science, and the lasting influence Russell’s publications on science and religion may have had on our time.
Several historians including Andrew Warwick, Joan Richards and Tony
Crilly have offered explanat... more Several historians including Andrew Warwick, Joan Richards and Tony
Crilly have offered explanations for why a stale culture of mathematics existed in
nineteenth century England. Nineteenth century British culture did not generally regard
mathematics as capable of failure, growth or change. This paper argues that a significant
contributing influence to this climate was book publishers, and the publisher Macmillan
and Company in particular. From 1850 to 1900 Macmillan published hundreds of
thousands of mathematical textbooks through industrialized book production. Macmillan
distributed these pedagogical materials throughout the United Kingdom,
Canada, the United States, Australia, India and elsewhere. Motivated by profits from
sales, and abetted by the efforts of their collaborator on mathematical subjects, Isaac
Todhunter, Macmillan perpetuated a stale, Cambridge-centric image of mathematics
among subsequent generations of mathematical learners in educational contexts
around the world. The Canadian mathematician J. C. Fields and the mathematical books
he read and wrote are featured within this larger narrative.
Publishing History 71, 2012
In the realm of publishing history it is well known that many of London’s largest nineteenth cent... more In the realm of publishing history it is well known that many of London’s largest nineteenth century publishers hired publisher’s readers to offer advice about which literary manuscripts they should publish. This paper demonstrates that publisher’s readers also worked in the genres of science and mathematics. At Macmillan and Company, publisher’s readers and close advisors to the publisher influenced decisions about what books were published on mathematical topics. This paper demonstrates how decision-making about publishing mathematics at a book publisher differed compared to how decisions were made at mathematical journals. The values that were applied to the decision-making process were different at mathematics journals compared to general science journals or book publishers. In each case the set of values affected the image of mathematics that was cultivated.
Scientia Canadensis (vol.36, no.2): Canadian Journal of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, 2013
In 1957, a small group of world-renown scientists gathered in Pugwash, Nova Scotia to discuss the... more In 1957, a small group of world-renown scientists gathered in Pugwash, Nova Scotia to discuss the growing threat of nuclear arms. Funded by industrialist Cyrus Eaton and spearheaded by philosopher Bertrand Russell and physicist Joseph Rotblat, this 1957 meeting founded an organization of scientists that believed they had a duty to speak out against escalating nuclear testing and what they saw as the irresponsible use of science. However, not every scientist felt that it was appropriate to take a public and political stand. This paper gives a brief history of the Pugwash movement and how its first meeting came to be held in Pugwash, Nova Scotia. The perspectives of involved scientists are examined, contrasting the attitudes of participants in the conference with the attitudes of scientists who declined a public role. This paper explores how scientists perceived their own responsibility to act, examining the willingness to use their cultural identity as scientists to lobby for a particular political position.
Russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies, 2008
When Russell was fifteen, he was given a copy of W.K. Clifford’s The Common Sense of the Exact Sc... more When Russell was fifteen, he was given a copy of W.K. Clifford’s The Common Sense of the Exact Sciences (1886). Russell later recalled reading it immediately “with passionate interest and with an intoxicating delight in intellectual clarification”. Why then, when Russell wrote An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry (1897), did he choose to defend spaces of homogeneous curvature as a priori? Why was he almost completely silent thereafter on the subject of Clifford, and his writings on geometry and space? We suggest that Russell may have avoided Clifford’s hypothesis that space had heterogeneous curvature because it seemed impossible to reconcile a coherent theory of measurement
with a space of variable curvature. Whitehead objected to Einstein’s general theory of relativity on this basis, formulating an alternate theory that preserved the constant curvature of space and, therefore, a familiar sense of measurement. After Einstein’s general theory, Russell chose to distance himself from the
position he argued in the Essay.
Book Reviews by Sylvia Nickerson
Historia Mathematica, 2013
Russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies, 2009
Review of Timothy J. Madigan, "W.K. Clifford and 'The Ethics of Belief'"
Russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies, 2009
Talks by Sylvia Nickerson
Uploads
Papers by Sylvia Nickerson
Crilly have offered explanations for why a stale culture of mathematics existed in
nineteenth century England. Nineteenth century British culture did not generally regard
mathematics as capable of failure, growth or change. This paper argues that a significant
contributing influence to this climate was book publishers, and the publisher Macmillan
and Company in particular. From 1850 to 1900 Macmillan published hundreds of
thousands of mathematical textbooks through industrialized book production. Macmillan
distributed these pedagogical materials throughout the United Kingdom,
Canada, the United States, Australia, India and elsewhere. Motivated by profits from
sales, and abetted by the efforts of their collaborator on mathematical subjects, Isaac
Todhunter, Macmillan perpetuated a stale, Cambridge-centric image of mathematics
among subsequent generations of mathematical learners in educational contexts
around the world. The Canadian mathematician J. C. Fields and the mathematical books
he read and wrote are featured within this larger narrative.
with a space of variable curvature. Whitehead objected to Einstein’s general theory of relativity on this basis, formulating an alternate theory that preserved the constant curvature of space and, therefore, a familiar sense of measurement. After Einstein’s general theory, Russell chose to distance himself from the
position he argued in the Essay.
Book Reviews by Sylvia Nickerson
Talks by Sylvia Nickerson
Crilly have offered explanations for why a stale culture of mathematics existed in
nineteenth century England. Nineteenth century British culture did not generally regard
mathematics as capable of failure, growth or change. This paper argues that a significant
contributing influence to this climate was book publishers, and the publisher Macmillan
and Company in particular. From 1850 to 1900 Macmillan published hundreds of
thousands of mathematical textbooks through industrialized book production. Macmillan
distributed these pedagogical materials throughout the United Kingdom,
Canada, the United States, Australia, India and elsewhere. Motivated by profits from
sales, and abetted by the efforts of their collaborator on mathematical subjects, Isaac
Todhunter, Macmillan perpetuated a stale, Cambridge-centric image of mathematics
among subsequent generations of mathematical learners in educational contexts
around the world. The Canadian mathematician J. C. Fields and the mathematical books
he read and wrote are featured within this larger narrative.
with a space of variable curvature. Whitehead objected to Einstein’s general theory of relativity on this basis, formulating an alternate theory that preserved the constant curvature of space and, therefore, a familiar sense of measurement. After Einstein’s general theory, Russell chose to distance himself from the
position he argued in the Essay.