Teaching and Scientific popularisation

These two sessions of introduction to the history of mathematics were part of a larger class for the first year of the master's program. The first of the two took dealt with a controversy around the interpretation of Old Babylonian tablets, and used this as an opportunity to present the problems related to the edition of the texts, and the importance of archaeological contexts to understand the mathematical content of the text. The following session took this as a starting point to explore further the reconstitution of mathematical practices from texts in Chinese and in Sanskrit.

This whole semester class dealt with the History of Algebra. I was in charge for the first half of the semester, which dealt with everything from Antiquity until the Modern Period (c. 17th century). My part of the class was organised around the reading of sources in their original language (Akkadian, Chinese, Sansirkt, Arabic, Latin, French and German). These texts were selected as an opportunity to talk about issues of method, regarding how to deal with the archaeological context of the sources, the stakes related to the methods of edition, the way texts are read, and so on.

This session was part of a larger class dedicated to the topic of "Numbers and Magnitudes". The goal for this session was to show how sources related to the History of Astronomy could be used to study such a theme. I composed the lesson around a collection of documents from different periods and in different languages, which constituded multiple case studies. Students could then choose to write their final essay on an article which allowed them to dive deeper into one of the topics explored in the class. (Documents présentés : 1–Chantilly, Bibliothèque et archives du château, Ms 65; 2–Istambul, Arkeoloji Müzeleri, Uruk 0126; 3–Brāhmasphutasiddhānta; 4–Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Latin 7432; 5–Paris, Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève, 1043; 6–Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole 1796; 7–Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc 675; 8–Leiden, Universitätsbibliothek Leiden, Or. 8; 9–Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Chinois 5015; 10–Oxford, Bodleian Library, Sinica 897/13; 11–Paris, bibliothèque nationale de France, Nouvelles acquisitions françaises 1844)

I made this session in coordination with Haolin Wang 王浩霖 and Taro Tokutake 徳武 太郎. We presented an overview of multiple mathematical problems dealt in Sanskrit texts.

This class, made with Adeline Reynaud, was a general introduction to the history of sciences in the Ancient Middle East. It was composed around four themes: divination, medicine, mathematics and astronomy. These were used as case studies to explore the broader methodological question of characterising the role of "sciences" in ancient sources.