History Commons^™

The Merchant And The Mathematician: Commerce And Accounting, Graziano Gentili, Luisa Simonutti, Daniele C. Struppa

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

In this article we describe the invention of double-entry bookkeeping (or partita doppiaas it was called in Italian), as a fertile intersection between mathematics and early commerce. We focus our attention on this seemingly simple technique that requires only minimal mathematical expertise, but whose discovery is clearly the result of a mathematical way of thinking, in order to make a conceptual point about the role of mathematics as the humus from which disciplines as different as operations research, computer science, and data science have evolved.

An Introduction To Seshat: Global History Databank, Peter Turchin, Harvey Whitehouse, Pieter François, Daniel Hoyer, Abel Alves, John Baines, David Baker, Marta Bartkowiak, Jennifer Bates, James Bennett, Julye Bidmead, Peter Bol, Alessandro Ceccarelli, Kostis Christakis, David Christian, Alan Covey, Franco De Angelis, Timothy K. Earle, Neil R. Edwards, Gary Feinman, Stephanie Grohmann, Philip B. Holden, Árni Júlíusson, Andrey Korotayev, Axel Kristinsson, Jennifer Larson, Oren Litwin, Victor Mair, Joseph G. Manning, Patrick Manning, Arkadiusz Marciniak, Gregory Mcmahon, John Miksic, Juan Carlos Moreno Garcia, Ian Morris, Ruth Mostern, Daniel Mullins, Oluwole Oyebamiji, Peter Peregrine, Cameron Petrie, Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, Peter Rudiak-Gould, Paula Sabloff, Patrick Savage, Charles Spencer, Miriam Stark, Barend Ter Haar, Stefan Thurner, Vesna Wallace, Nina Witoszek, Liye Xie

Religious Studies Faculty Articles and Research

This article introduces the Seshat: Global History Databank, its potential, and its methodology. Seshat is a databank containing vast amounts of quantitative data buttressed by qualitative nuance for a large sample of historical and archaeological polities. The sample is global in scope and covers the period from the Neolithic Revolution to the Industrial Revolution. Seshat allows scholars to capture dynamic processes and to test theories about the co-evolution (or not) of social scale and complexity, agriculture, warfare, religion, and any number of such Big Questions. Seshat is rapidly becoming a massive resource for innovative cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary research. Seshat is …

The Infinite Is The Chasm In Which Our Thoughts Are Lost: Reflections On Sophie Germain's Essays, Adam Glesser, Bogdan D. Suceavă, Mihaela Vajiac

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

"Sophie Germain (1776–1831) is quite well-known to the mathematical community for her contributions to number theory [17] and elasticity theory (e.g., see [2, 5]). On the other hand, there have been few attempts to understand Sophie Germain as an intellectual of her time, as an independent thinker outside of academia, and as a female mathematician in France, facing the prejudice of the time of the First Empire and of the Bourbon Restoration, while pursuing her thoughts and interests and writing on them. Sophie Germain had to face a double challenge: the mathematical difficulty of the problems she approached and the …

Foreword To Relativizing Newton, Vernon L. Smith

Economics Faculty Books and Book Chapters

A foreword to Ramzi Suleiman's book Relativizing Newton.

Preface To "Intertwingled: The Work And Influence Of Ted Nelson", Douglas R. Dechow, Daniele C. Struppa

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Books and Book Chapters

This is the preface to "Intertwingled: The Work and Influence of Ted Nelson", which examines and honors the work and influence of the computer visionary and re-imagines its meaning for the future. Emerging from a conference held in 2014 at Chapman University, it includes contributions from world-renowned computer scientists and media figures.

The full text of this book is available on an open access basis at Springer.

The blog for the Intertwingled Conference can be read here.