The Mathematical Miscellany (1836-1839)
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: The Mathematical Miscellany (1836-1839)
zbMATH Open document ID: 0572.01013
DOI: 10.1016/0315-0860(85)90022-9
author: Edward R. Hogan
published in: Historia Mathematica
publication date: 1985-01-01T00:00:00Z
full work available at URL: hvd.32044089556245
review text: In 1830, the self-taught mathematics teacher Charles Gill (1805-1855) emigrated from England to the USA, where he soon found employment at the Flushing Institute, Long Island (eventually Saint Paul's College). In 1836, he founded the Mathematical Miscellany on a pattern inspired by the English Ladies Diary and the American Mathematics Diary, to both of which he had contributed solutions of mathematical problems. The journal was structured in a ''junior'' and a ''senior department'', both of which contained some articles but mostly problems and solutions to previous problems. The articles in the senior department were partly written by the best mathematical minds of the country (among which Benjamin Peirce) and partly translated from fairly recent European publications. A comparison with the Mathematical Correspondent (published 1804-1806) and even with the Mathematical Diary (1825-1832) shows the development of American mathematics over three decades. The level of the problems has become much higher since the Correspondent, and while even the contributors of the Diary were still at most acquainted with the works of Lagrange and Laplace and with the antiquated Britich 18 th century mathematics, those of the Miscellany were well versed in contemporary European mathematics (Legendre, Cauchy, Sturm, Abel, Jacobi, Liouville, Poisson and others). On the other hand, the circle of people attaining this level of competence was utterly restricted. The number of subscribers to the Miscellany stayed below one hundred (concentrated around Saint Paul College and some other New York schools), while the Correspondent had reached approximately 400. Apart from the lucrative writing of text-books, the interest in mathematics in even the best Academic community was too weak to express itself in any interest in the journal - a natural consequence of a situation where colleges offered no specialized mathematics courses (be it at the undergraduate level) and claimed no research on part of…
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A55
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A80
zbMATH DE Number: 3912333
zbMATH Keywords: Nancy Buttrick
zbMATH Keywords: mathematical journals
zbMATH Keywords: Charles Gill
zbMATH Keywords: mathematical problems
zbMATH Keywords: Benjamin Peirce
Wikidata QID: Q108321412
reviewed by: Jens Høyrup
MaRDI profile type: Publication
OpenAlex ID: W1987083235
cites work: Anonymous Communication and Anonymous Cash
cites work: Q5572275
cites work: George Baron and the Mathematical Correspondent
cites work: Robert Adrain: American mathematician
cites work: Theodore Strong and ante-bellum american mathematics
cites work: Q5834131
cites work: Q4401917
cites work: Benjamin Peirce's Linear Associative Algebra
cites work: On the Problem of Runs
description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3912333