Dr. Paulus Gerdes Professor of Mathematics Universidade Pedagogica Office: Rua Marconi 109 R/C, Maputo Postal address: C.P. 915, Maputo, Mozambique tel. (office) +258-1-494504 e-mail: [email protected] AMUCHMA-NEWSLETTER-22 ________________________________________________________________ Chairman: Paulus Gerdes (Mozambique) Secretary: Ahmed Djebbar (Algeria) Treasurer: Salimata Doumbia (Côte d'Ivoire) Members: Kgomotso Garegae-Garekwe (Botswana), Maassouma Kazim (Egypt), Cornelio Abungu (Kenya), Ahmedou Haouba (Mauritania), Mohamed Aballagh (Morocco), Ruben Ayeni (Nigeria), Abdoulaye Kane (Senegal), David Mosimege (South Africa), Mohamed Souissi (Tunisia), David Mtwetwa (Zimbabwe) ________________________________________________________________ TABLE OF CONTENTS page 1. Objectives of AMUCHMA - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 2 2. Meetings, exhibitions, events - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 2 3. Notes and queries - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 5 4. Sources - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 6 5. Have you read? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 10 6. Announcements - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 12 7. Addresses of scholars, institutions and publishers 14 mentioned in this newsletter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 8. Suggestions - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 16 9. Do you want to receive the next AMUCHMA-Newsletter - 16 ________________________________________________________________ Universidade Pedagógica (UP), Maputo (Mozambique), 25.06.1999 2 1. OBJECTIVES The A.M.U. Commission on the History of Mathematics in Africa (AMUCHMA), formed in 1986, has the following objectives: a. to improve communication among those interested in the history of mathematics in Africa; b. to promote active cooperation between historians, mathematicians, archaeologists, ethnographers, sociologists, etc., doing research in, or related to, the history of mathematics in Africa; c. to promote research in the history of mathematics in Africa, and the publication of its results, in order to contribute to the demystification of the still-dominant Eurocentric bias in the historiography of mathematics; d. to cooperate with any and all organizations pursuing similar objectives. The main activities of AMUCHMA are as follows: a. publication of a newsletter; b. setting up of a documentation centre; c. organization of lectures on the history of mathematics at national, regional, continental and international congresses and conferences. 2. MEETINGS, EXHIBITIONS, EVENTS 2.1 International Colloquium in Rabat (Morocco) The Research Group on the History and Philosophy of the Sciences of the Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences of the Mohammed V in Rabat (Morocco) organised from 28 to 30 October, 1998, an international symposium on “Imagination in the global process of scientific knowledge”. Academics from different countries (Algeria, Germany, Morocco, Portugal, USA) took part. The following themes were presented: * Aballagh, Mohamed (Morocco): Aristotle versus the scientists from the Muslim west from the 12th to the 14th century; * Abattouy, Mohamed (Morocco): Medieval Arab mechanics between real and imaginary; * Alozade, Mohamed (Morocco): Imagination and science in the philosophy of al-Farabi; * Bartuschat, Wolfgang (Germany): Imagination, understanding and aesthetic idea; * Ben Maissa, Abdessalam: (Morocco): How imagination works: an empirical point of view; * Cargon, Robert (USA): Model, analogy and the physical imagination: The case of the vortex atom; * Carlos, Jacques (Portugal): Sokal's misreadings of philosophy; * Chadli, Mostefa (Morocco): Space and its representations in the human sciences; 3 * Chaitin, Gilbert (USA): Reading Sokal's text: the right way to do science; * Djebbar, Ahmed (Algeria): The place of imagination in the mathematical activities of the medieval Arabic tradition; * El Bouazzati, Bennacer (Morocco): Imagination and reasoning; * El Mesbahi, Mohamed (Morocco): The role of imagination in the view of the philosophers of the Islam; * Haddad, Lahcen (Morocco): Sokal's imaginary philosophers; * Herzenni, Ahmed (Morocco): Reality between unity and fragmentation; * Levine, Amy (USA): A suspensing of fixity: A continuing debate between reason and madness in Derrida and Foucault; * Molella, Arthur (USA): The electrodynamic world view an the frontiers of the scientific imagination; * Moulay-Rachid, Mostefa (Morocco): The role of imagination in the progress of ancient geographic thought. 2.2 International Colloquium at the Dibner Institute, Boston (USA) An international colloquium on “New perspectives on science in medieval Islam” was held (November 6-8, 1998) at the Dibner Institute (Boston, USA). The following papers were presented related to the history of science in the north of Africa: * Djebbar, Ahmed (Algeria): Mathematical activities in the Muslim West (8th-16th Centuries): Present status and prospects; * Folkerts, Menso (Germany): Arithmetic: From India through Baghdad to the West; * Kunitzsch, Paul (Germany): The transmission of Hindu-Arabic numerals reconsidered; * Langermann, Tzvi (Israel): Another Andalusian revolt?: Ibn Rushd's critique of Al-Kindi's Pharmacological Computus; * Samso, Julio (Spain): The survival of Andalusian astronomy and the introduction of Eastern Zijes in the Maghreb until the 19th Century. 2.3a Visit of Ahmed Djebbar to Tunis Invited by the Tunisian Ministry of Higher Education, Ahmed Djebbar visited Tunis from 19 to 25 November, 1998. He was invited in the context of creating (for the first time in the Maghreb) of a course of the History of Science and Epistemology. This one semester course (one hour a week), will be introduced at the beginning of the 98-99 academic year. It is compulsory for first year students of the ‘Maîtrises’ in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and Computer Science and of the ‘Maîtrises’ in Life and Earth Sciences. In the first semester will have a course in the history of mathematics, of physics, of biology, of chemistry and of geology respectively. In the second semester, the history of these subjects will be continued by a more epistemological explanation. 4 During his visit, Ahmed Djebbar (Algeria) took part, with the lecturers of the history of science at the University of Tunis II (all volunteers), in meetings of evaluation of the new course in the history of science and in the preparation of a postgraduate program for these lecturers. During his visit, Ahmed Djebbar gave three talks on the following themes: * Mathematics in the Maghreb and in Andalusia and its transmission to Europe; * Mathematics and cultural or game activities in the Maghreb; * From al-Khwarizmi to Galois : a history of classical algebra. 2.3b National Seminar on the Teaching of the History of Science (Tunisia) Following the visit of Ahmed Djebbar to Tunis, the Ministry of Higher Education organised a National Seminar on the Teaching of the History of Science with a duration of one week. Two conferences and one workshop on the history of mathematics were presented: * Helène Gispert : Is it possible to speak of European mathematics in the 19th century ?; * Ahmed Djebbar : Overview of scientific activities in the medieval Maghreb (11th-16th centuries). * (Workshop) H. Abrougui, F. Bellalouna, A. Djebbar : Presentation and study of Arab algebraic texts. 2.4 Seminar in Paris on Mathematics in Africa south of the Sahara At the initiative of Elikia M’Bokolo (CEAf) and invited by the Centre of African Studies (CEAf) at the “Ècole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales” (EHESS) of the French National Scientific Research Council (CNRS), Paulus Gerdes (Mozambique) conducted from January 20 to February 18, 1999, a research seminar entitled “Culture and mathematics in Africa south of the Sahara: History of mathematics and ethnomathematical research”. In the seminar took part historians, anthropologists, sociologists, mathematicians and philosophers, from several African (Algeria, Angola, Congo-Brazzaville, Congo-Kinshasa, Mali, Senegal) and European countries (France, Germany, Italy). 2.6 Papers presented at recent meetings During the 4th World Archaeological Congress (January 10-14, 1999, Cape Town, South Africa) a CASAS-CODESRIA Symposium on the Africanisation of Knowledge took place. It was coordinated by Kwesi Prah, the Director of the Centre for Advanced Studies of African Societies (CASAS) in Cape Town. The following themes related to mathematics were presented: 5 * Gerdes, Paulus (Mozambique) : On the production of mathematical knowledge in Central and Southern Africa; * Gnanvo, Cyprien (Benin) : African languages and the mastering of mathematical and scientific knowledge; * Seepe, Sipho (South Africa) : Re-configuring African mathematics and scientific knowledge systems to meet the challenges of the 21st century. At the International Colloquium on “Commerce and Mathematics” (Beaumont de Lomagne, France, May 13-16, 1999) the following papers were presented by researchers from the Maghreb: * Ahmed Djebbar (Algeria) : The commercial transactions in Arab mathematical texts; * Ezzaim Laabid (Morocco) : The proportional distribution in Maghrebian mathematical tradition; * Mohammed Souissi (Tunisia) : Application of proportions in problems of commercial arithmetic. About two hundred teachers and inspectors of mathematics from all regions of Morocco took part in the second International Colloquium on Didactics of Mathematics (Safi, Morocco, May 27-29, 1999). An important place was given