IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB127439302

Gauss and the Mathematical Background to Standardisation (2020)

Ferreirós, José (Author)

HOST: Journal of History of Science and Technology
Volume: 14
Issue: 1
Pages: 32-51

DOI: 10.2478/host-2020-0003

URI: https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/host-2020-0003

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Quantification Applied mathematics Metrology Mathematics Standards and standardization 19th century Gauss, Carl Friedrich

Our aim is to explore the links between standardisation, the quantifying spirit, and the discipline mathematics. To do so, we consider the work of Gauss, renowned as a pure mathematician, but professionally an astronomer, and one heavily engaged with all kinds of measuring and precision initiatives. He contributed to the mathematical correction of data with the method of least squares; to observations of high precision in his geodetic work; to the introduction of absolute measures in his collaborations with Weber on terrestrial magnetism; and to the rationalisation of weights and measures in the state of Hannover. Ultimately, the question is to what extent such precision and standardisation activities may have been rooted in the mathematical way of thinking. Mathematics in our tradition has had a strong contemplative bias (theory, theorein in Greek means to contemplate), but it’s a fact that mathematics has always had a non-eliminable technical side.

...More

Included in

Article Javier Ordóñez; Antonio Sánchez (2020) Introduction: Standards in the History of Contemporary Science. HOST: Journal of History of Science and Technology (pp. 1-5). unapi

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB127439302/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Hentschel, Klaus; (2007)
Gauss, Meyerstein, and Hanoverian Metrology (/isis/citation/CBB000771330/)

Article Enebakk, Vidar; (2014)
Hansteen's Magnetometer and the Origin of the Magnetic Crusade (/isis/citation/CBB001202237/)

Book Glimp, David; Warren, Michelle R.; (2004)
Arts of Calculation: Quantifying Thought in Early Modern Europe (/isis/citation/CBB000771864/)

Chapter Djebbar, Ahmed; (2005)
Pratiques métrologiques arabes et savoirs mathématiques (/isis/citation/CBB000775000/)

Article Schrimpf, Andreas; (2014)
The First Measurement of the Deflection of the Vertical in Longitude (/isis/citation/CBB001451855/)

Article Terry Quinn; (2019)
Wilhelm Foerster's Role in the Metre Convention of 1875 and in the Early Years of the International Committee for Weights and Measures (/isis/citation/CBB401364988/)

Article Hintikka, Jaakko; (2012)
Which Mathematical Logic is the Logic of Mathematics? (/isis/citation/CBB001214120/)

Article Kidwell, Peggy Aldrich; (2009)
Computing Devices, Mathematics Education and Mathematics: Sexton's Omnimetre in Its Time (/isis/citation/CBB000953072/)

Article Silvia Manzo; (2020)
Experiment and Quantification of Weight: Late-Renaissance and Early Modern Medical, Mineralogical and Chemical Discussions on the Weights of Metals (/isis/citation/CBB767440750/)

Book Benjamin Wardhaugh; (2018)
The Correspondence of Charles Hutton: Mathematical Networks in Georgian Britain (/isis/citation/CBB753326504/)

Article Archibald, T.; Tazzioli, R.; (2014)
Integral Equations between Theory and Practice: The Cases of Italy and France to 1920 (/isis/citation/CBB001202206/)

Thesis Greenhalgh, Adam Robert; (2012)
Risky Business: Chance and Contingency in American Art, around 1900 (/isis/citation/CBB001562788/)

Article Abardia, Judit; Reventós, Agustí; Rodríguez, Carlos J.; (2012)
What Did Gauss Read in the Appendix? (/isis/citation/CBB001251202/)

Article Bullynck, Maarten; (2010)
Factor Tables 1657--1817, with Notes on the Birth of Number Theory (/isis/citation/CBB001033636/)

Article Del Centina, Andrea; Fiocca, Alessandra; (2012)
The Correspondence between Sophie Germain and Carl Friedrich Gauss (/isis/citation/CBB001200069/)

Book Alberto Cogliati; (2024)
La geometria non euclidea. Una breve storia dall’antichità a Poincaré (/isis/citation/CBB276091257/)

Book Mittler, Elmar; Glitsch, Silke; (2005)
“Wie der Blitz einschlägt, hat sich das Räthsel gelöst”: Carl Friedrich Gauß in Göttingen (/isis/citation/CBB001232255/)

Article Reich, Karin; (2003)
Cauchy und Gauß. Cauchy's Rezeption im Umfeld von Gauß (/isis/citation/CBB000340519/)

Chapter Kaplan, Pierre; (2004)
L'équation de Pell-Fermat, de Fermat à nos jours et un problème de Gauss (/isis/citation/CBB000650848/)

Book Ekeland, Ivar; (2006)
The Best of All Possible Worlds: Mathematics and Destiny (/isis/citation/CBB000741783/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}