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The International Centre for Mathematical Sciences (ICMS)

The objective of this 5-day workshop is to bring scholars from distinct cultures of inquiry together to share the specific ways in which people in different times and places developed mathematics to model eclipse phenomena, with a chronological focus on the period 1650-1922, and to trace the circulation and development of these technical insights and practices globally. The workshop will include academic papers from a range of both established and early-career researchers alongside workshops designed to connect participants with eclipse-related methods and physical processes of mathematical knowledge-making, as well as to consider different forms of research output related to eclipse research and how this changed over the period under investigation and continues to develop. The aim is to bring together a cross-cultural cohort of scholars with the vision of generating a broader, coherent sense of shared ownership of the mathematical tradition of eclipse reckoning.

Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences

To set the tone for the very first research programme on the history of mathematics at the Isaac Newton Institute, this opening workshop will feature experts from several different areas of the discipline all of whom have been asked to address the following: “What do you consider to be the most significant open question, or lacuna, in your area of the history of mathematics?” Speakers will be encouraged to outline the background to their chosen question or lacuna, outline the challenges that lie ahead for current research, suggest some possible strategies and approaches that could be applied, and possibly speculate on potential or anticipated findings.

Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences

In contrast to the opening workshop, which takes the identification of open questions in the Modern History of Mathematics as its focus, the closing workshop invites speakers to reflect upon the themes of the preceding four months, to suggest possible avenues and directions of further research, and in particular to suggest practical ways in which these might be taken forward. There will also be opportunities for the presentation of research undertaken during the programme itself, together with ideas generated over the preceding weeks, and the discussion of new questions and problems.