Arts and Humanities Commons^™

On French Pudding And A German Mathematician, Amy Shoemaker

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

At the turn of the 19^th century, mathematics developed the rigor that is now considered essential to the field. Mathematicians began going back and proving theorems and statements that had been taken to be true on face value, ensuring the underpinnings of mathematics were solid. This era of mathematics was characterized not only by setting foundations, but also by pushing the boundaries of new ideas. In 1830, Bolzano found an example of a function that was nowhere differentiable, despite being continuous. Thirty years later, Cellerier and Riemann each discovered another example of such a pathological function. The first everywhere …