IMU Bulletin no. 45, December, 1999

International Comission on the History of Mathematics

Report for 1999 prepared by Kirsti Andersen and Jeanne Peiffer.

The ICHM supports the regular international meetings of mathematics historians, which tend to alternate between Oberwolfach, Germany, and Luminy-Marseille, France. The 1999 meeting in Luminy, September 20-24, was organized by Michel Armatte, Université Dauphine, Paris; Hélène Gispert, Université de Paris Sud; Donald Mackenzie, University of Edinburgh; and Karen Parshall, University of Virginia. The general theme of the conference was methods in history of mathematics.

Christoph J. Scriba and Joseph W. Dauben are currently engaged in the last editorial work on Writing the History of Mathematics: Its Historical Development. This book, which has been prepared under the patronage of the ICHM, collects chapters on the historiography of the history of mathematics in different parts of the world, biographical notes on important historians of mathematics, and bibliographical information. It will be published in the Science Network series of Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel.

For the XXI International Congress of History of Science and Technology, Mexico City, July 8-14, 2001, which has the theme Ascience and cultural diversity," the ICHM has thus far received the following proposal for symposia which it is going to support:

1. Mission et diffusion des sciences européennes ! en Amérique et en Asie: le cas jésuite, organized by Eberhard Knobloch and Antonella Romano.
2. Foundations and Practice in the History of Mathematics, organized by Craig Fraser.
3. Encounter of Greek mathematics with the mathematics as developed in the16th and 17th centuries in Europe, organized by Ivo Schneider.

From January 1, 2000, Umberto Bottazzini and Craig Fraser will take over the editorial ship of the commission's journal Historia Mathematica.