ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

A Socio-Economic Historiography Approach of Early Dynamical Systems Theory (1880-1940)

• In Event: Histories of Mathematics

English Abstract

A socio-economic historiographical approach is applied here to the early decades of the development of Dynamical Systems Theory (DST). Focusing on the period from 1880 to 1940 provides material on the way social and economic factors influenced this specific scientific theory.

Inspired by the research on stability and equilibrium of mechanical systems and the qualitative behavior of differential equations of late 19th century, Poincaré pioneer works manifested the DST as an autonomous mathematical topic. First decades of the 20th century were also connected with Poincaré’s concept as well as with traditions from various schools mainly based in continental Europe focusing on the behavior of nonlinear oscillations.

The development of DST was shaped by the social and economic instability of the early period and by the war-oriented needs of the 1910s and the interwar years. Significant developments, including electrification, telecommunications, steam technologies, new industrial processes, and the development of transportation, affected the rise of scientific questions and experimental problems that formed important historical considerations in this theory evolution.

This presentation aims to present the history of DST, from a socio-economical point of view. Special focus has been given to the period from 1880 to 1940. Highlights technology, economy, and production factors that drove developments in the field as well as the ways in which scientific convergence occurred.

We consider that the interpretative framework of Science–Technology–Production, adopted here as a historiographical approach, can contribute to existing historiography by posing new questions and proposing new answers.

Author

• Andreas Sofianos, National Technical University of Athens