The British Society for the History of Mathematics

Web resources on the history of mathematics

Selected and annotated by June Barrow-Green (j.e.barrow-green@open.ac.uk).

The intention of this page is to give some indication of the kind of material that is available on the web, with a few examples in each case: not to list it exhaustively. Many more sites can be found through viewing the pages of Web Resources listed below.

Certain other resources are also maintained on this site: David Singmaster's Mathematical Gazetteer of the British Isles; a list of the items bequeathed by John Fauvel and held by the Open University Library on behalf of the Society (by author or by classmark); a list of books offered for sale to members from the collection of the late Neil Bibby (html or Excel spreadsheet).
Contents

* General sites
* Web resources
* Biographies
* Regional mathematics
* Museums with mathematics exhibits
* Special exhibits
* Books and articles on-line
* Student presentations
* Bibliography
* Societies
* Journals
* Philosophy of Mathematics
* History of Statistics
* History of Computing
* Education
* Miscellaneous

Some of these sites are specifically devoted to history of mathematics while others are part of larger sites. Sites which contain, or have links which contain, images and are slow to download, or which are interactive and require a specially enabled browser, have been marked with an asterisk (*). A 'hypertext' site is one which contains pages in which there are links to other pages explicitly incorporated within the text itself. A 'hypermedia' site is one which incorporates the opportunity to access additional media, such as music or animation.

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General Sites

All large sites have a gateway page which gives an indication of the type of resources that are available on other pages of the site. The following are the addresses of the gateways to three of the best known of the general sites on history of mathematics. (Some of the pages on these sites are also included in other sections.)
David Joyce's History of Mathematics Home Page
http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/mathhist/

This is the starting point to a wealth of resources provided by David Joyce of Clark University, USA. There are pages on regional mathematics, subjects, books, journals, bibliography, history of mathematics texts etc, as well as an excellent list of Web Resources clearly categorised (see below), a very extensive chronology, and timelines. A highly recommended site.
The Math Forum Internet Resource Collection
http://mathforum.org/
http://mathforum.org/library/topics/history/

This site is part of the The Math Forum, an on-line mathematics education community centre, and provides an extensive list of annotated links to other sites. The sites are ordered alphabetically and the collection can be viewed in outline or annotated form. There is a well designed search engine which allows for a variety of searches, i.e. keywords, categories and dates.
St Andrews MacTutor History of Mathematics
http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/

A collection of biographies of mathematicians, and a variety of resources on the developments of various branches of mathematics. The site includes an interactive (Java) famous curves index, pages on mathematical societies, medals, and honours, and birthplace maps. An extremely rich and extensive site with some excellent pages although the quality is not always consistent. In particular, the biographies should be viewed with care. Overall, though, a good place to start.
Trinity College, Dublin, History of Mathematics archive
http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/HistMath/HistMath.html

This site, which was created and is maintained by David Wilkins, includes biographies of some seventeenth and eighteenth century mathematicians, material on Berkeley, Newton, Hamilton, Boole, Riemann and Cantor, and an extensive directory of history of mathematics websites (see below). Another good place to start.
Convergence
http://mathdl.maa.org/convergence/1/

Convergence is an online magazine on the history of mathematics and its use in teaching, published by the Mathematical Association of America. It includes articles on the history of mathematics, material on the history of mathematics that can easily be used in teaching, reviews of books, websites, and teaching materials relevant to the history of mathematics, and more.