A residual category: Some reflections on the history of mathematics and its status (Q1310253)

The author, president of the British Society for the History of Mathematics -- BSHM -- between 1986-1988, tries to demonstrate the falsity of concepts such as: ``historians are only amateurs'', or ``they cannot read a modern mathematics book, whereas any mathematician can read a history''. BSHM was founded in 1971 and in 1992, after 21 years of activity, the continued occurrence of such activity demonstrated by itself the interest it aroused among specialists, again in spite of the idea of its being ``too mathematical for historians and too historical for mathematicians''. A special interest of BSHM is of an educational nature; thus, in 1972, a study group on the relations between the history and pedagogy of mathematics was launched at the Second International Congress on Mathematics Education. Nevertheless, similar to other countries, in Britain such concerns are rather exceptional than normal. One of the reasons discussed by the author is that the goal of history of mathematicians is to introduce the modern versions into the old ones, for discovering what were the predecessors really trying to do. The common mistake made here is that of identifying the process of modernising old ideas with the very history of the ideas considered in the discussion. In its essence, history of mathematics remains as scientific history, a part of the applied modern science.