The Edinburgh Mathematical Laboratory and Edmund Taylor Whittaker's role in the early development of numerical analysis in Britain (Q2041106)

The paper describes the origin and impact of the Edinburgh Mathematical Laboratory, founded by Edmund Taylor Whittaker at the University of Edinburgh in 1913. The lab was a place for training in numerical methods, including mathematical instruments such as slide rules, arithmometers, etc. The paper situates this founding in the wider history of university laboratories, pointing out that in 1913 they were still fairly new as a means for teaching the sciences and essentially unheard of as a means for teaching mathematics. The paper gives several sources of inspiration for Whittaker's founding of the lab: Carl Runge's programmatic 1912 lecture emphasizing the importance of practical training for mathematicians, the increasing importance of numerical methods in astronomy (one of Whittaker's passions) and insurance (where Whittaker had several friends), and the example of calculating rooms, which were popping up as appendices to physics labs. The paper goes on to describe some peculiarities of the lab, such as the gradual abandonment of graphical methods and the initial unwillingness to rely on calculating machines. It ends by describing how the Edinburgh mathematical lab, and other similar institutions, ultimately turned into computer labs and/or courses in numerical analysis.