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Article ID: CBB001451294

In Accordance with a “More Majestic Order”: The New Math and the Nature of Mathematics at Midcentury (2014)

Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Volume: 105, no. 3
Issue: 3
Pages: 540-563
Publication date: 2014
Language: English

DOI: 10.1086/678170

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The new math curriculum, one version of which was developed in the 1950s and 1960s by the School Mathematics Study Group under the auspices of the National Science Foundation, occasioned a great deal of controversy among mathematicians. Well before its rejection by parents and teachers, some mathematicians were vocal critics, decrying the new curriculum because of the way it described the practice and history of the discipline. The nature of mathematics, despite the field's triumphs in helping to win World War II and its midcentury promotion as the key to a modern technological society, was surprisingly contested in this period. Supporters of the School Mathematics Study Group, like its director, Edward Begle, emphasized the importance of portraying mathematics as a system of abstract structures, while opponents like Morris Kline argued that math was essentially a tool for understanding the natural world. The debate about the curriculum---and the role of mathematicians in its design---was also a debate about the underlying identity of the subject itself.

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