Stamping Through Mathematics R Wilson Springer.pdf

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THROUGH

M AT H E M AT I C S

TA M P I N G

The ten mathematical formulae that changed the face of the earth, as depicted by Nicaragua

in 1971.

Albrecht Dürer’s enigmatic engraving

Melencolia I

appears on this miniature sheet from

Mongolia. It features the brooding figure of Melancholy in reflective mood, holding a pair of

compasses. Featured are a giant polyhedron, a sphere, an hourglass, and a 4 4 magic square

in which the numbers in each row, column and diagonal add up to 34; the date of the engraving,

1514, appears in the bottom row.

THROUGH

M AT H E M AT I C S

O B I N

J. W

I L S O N

The Open University, UK

TA M P I N G

All science is either physics or stamp collecting

ERNEST RUTHERFORD

Robin J. Wilson

Department of Pure Mathematics

The Open University

Milton Keynes MK7 6AA

United Kingdom

r.j.wilson@open.ac.uk

Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): 01A05, 01Axx

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wilson, Robin J.

Stamping through mathematics/Robin J. Wilson.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-387-98949-8 (alk. paper)

1. Mathematics—History. 2. Mathematics on postage stamps.

QA21.W39 2001

510'.9—dc21

Printed on acid-free paper.

out the written permission of the publisher (Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 175 Fifth

Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews

or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and

retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar method-

ology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden.

The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, etc., in this publication,

even if the former are not especially identified, is not to be taken as a sign that such

names, as understood by the Trade Marks and Merchandise Marks Act, may accordingly

be used freely by anyone.

Production managed by Frank McGuckin; manufacturing supervised by Jacqui Ashri.

Typeset by Matrix Publishing Services, Inc., York, PA.

Printed and bound by Walsworth Publishing Company, Inc., Brookfield, MO.

Printed in the United States of America.

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ISBN 0-387-98949-8

SPIN

10746624

I. Title.

00-052279

Springer-Verlag New York Berlin Heidelberg

A member of BertelsmannSpringer Science-Business Media GmbH

Preface

here are many hundreds of postage stamps relating to mathematics, rang-

ing from the earliest forms of counting to the modern computer age. In

these pages you will meet many of the mathematicians who contributed to

this story—influential figures such as Pythagoras, Archimedes, Newton and

Einstein—and will learn about those areas, such as navigation, astronomy

and art, whose study aided this development. Each topic appears on a dou-

ble page, with a commentary on the left and enlarged stamp images on the

right. A list of the featured stamps appears at the end of the book.

This book is written for anyone interested in mathematics and its applications.

Although parts of it assume some knowledge of school or college level mathe-

matics, I hope that much of it will be of interest to readers without this back-

ground. In particular, I hope that it will also attract a philatelic readership.

This is not a history of mathematics book in the conventional sense of the

word. Several important mathematicians or topics are omitted, due to the

absence of suitable stamps featuring them, whereas others may have

assumed undue prominence because of the abundance of attractive images.

Where appropriate I have felt free to let the stamps dictate the story.

Postage stamps are an attractive vehicle for presenting mathematics and its

development. For some years I have successfully presented an illustrated

lecture entitled

Stamping through mathematics

to school and college groups

and to mathematical clubs and societies, and I am grateful to many people

over the years for the useful comments they have made.

Since 1984 I have also contributed a regular ‘Stamp Corner’ to

The Mathe-

matical Intelligencer,

and thank the publishers for permission to use material

from these columns. Useful material for this book was also gleaned from

Philamath*,

a regular news sheet for collectors of mathematical stamps. I am

also very grateful to the Postal Authorities and individuals who have given

permission to reproduce the copyrighted stamp images; a list of these

appears in the

Acknowledgements

section at the end of the book.

Finally, many individuals have helped with suggestions, and I am particu-

larly grateful to Marlow Anderson, June Barrow-Green, Joy Crispin-Wilson,

Matthew Esplen, Florence Fasanelli, John Fauvel, Michael Ferguson, Ray-

mond Flood, Paul Garcia, Helen Gardner, Caroline Grundy, Keith Hannabuss,

Heiko Harborth, Roger Heath-Brown, Stephen Huggett, Victor Katz, Adrian

Rice and Eleanor Robson for their support and advice. I am also very grate-

ful to Tony Webb of the Open University for scanning the stamp images, and

to Ina Lindemann, Joe Piliero and Jerry Lyons of Springer-Verlag, New York.

Robin Wilson

August 2000

* For information about

Philamath,

please contact:

Philamath,

5615 Glenwood Road, Bethesda, MD

20817, USA

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