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What Was Jakob Steiner Like?

  • Years Ago
  • Jemma Lorenat, Editor
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References

  1. Jemma Lorenat, The greatest geometer since the time of Apollonius, The Mathematical Intelligencer 39(3) (Fall 2017), 46–52.

  2. A typed version of the Hirst diaries is held at the Royal Institution in London, and has been edited by W. H. Brock and R. M. MacLeod and published in microfiche by Mansell, London, in 1980. The quotations included here (from pages 1034, 1036–1037, 1039, 1041–1042, 1056, 1067–1068, 1644–1645, 1723–1725, and 2756) appear by courtesy of the Royal Institution.

  3. J. H. Graf, Der Mathematiker Jakob Steiner von Utzenstorf, K. J. Wyss (Bern), 1897.

  4. J. Helen Gardner and Robin J. Wilson, Thomas Archer Hirst—Mathematician Xtravagant. I: A Yorkshire surveyor; II: Student days in Germany; III: Göttingen and Berlin; IV: Queenwood, France and Italy; V: London in the 1860s; VI: Years of decline, American Mathematical Monthly 100 (1993), 435–441, 531–538, 619–625, 723–731, 827–834, 905–913.

  5. The diary extracts included in this article have been slightly edited, and where possible we have attempted to correct and translate Hirst’s (sometimes erroneous) German. I am grateful to Damian Rössler for help with the German translations.

  6. The two papers by Steiner were: On two new methods of defining curves of the second order, together with new properties of the same deducible therefrom, Cambridge and Dublin Mathematics Journal 8 (1853), 227–240; General consideration on conic sections in double contact with each other, Cambridge and Dublin Mathematics Journal 9 (1854), 34–46.

  7. Memoir of Thomas Archer Hirst, Ph.D., F.R.S., F.R.A.S., Men and Women of the Time, 13th ed., George Routledge & Sons, 1891.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mathematical Institute, Andrew Wiles Building University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Robin Wilson

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  1. Robin Wilson
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Correspondence to Robin Wilson.

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Years Ago features essays by historians and mathematicians that take us back in time. Whether addressing special topics or general trends, individual mathematicians or “schools” (as in schools of fish), the idea is always the same: to shed new light on the mathematics of the past. Submissions are welcome.

Submissions should be uploaded to http://tmin.edmgr.com or sent directly to Jemma Lorenat, e-mail: jlorenat@pitzer.edu.

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Wilson, R. What Was Jakob Steiner Like?. Math Intelligencer 40, 51–56 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00283-018-9787-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00283-018-9787-5

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