Welcome to MAT 336 History of Mathematics

Useful links

• Course Schedule: The course schedule of Lectures 1 and 3 and course schedule of Lecture 2 list what topics were (or will be) covered, as well as all course work and deadlines. These schedules might change if the progress of the class requires it.
• Syllabus: The description and policies of this course can be found (of course!) on the class syllabus.
• Click on each of the names below for addresses, office hours, office location and zoom links.
  • Moira Chas Instructor Lectures 1 and 3
  • Ljudmila Kamenova Instructor Lecture 2
  • Grader of Lecture 1.
  • Grader of Lecture 2.
  • Grader of Lecture 3.
• The list of topics, as well as a possible secondary source is here.
• Missed work: Please fill out this form if you have a documented reason for missing quizzes, homework, lectures, etc. I will use the responses from this form—not email messages—when calculating grades. If your reason is not documented, I will still take your submission into account, but I cannot guarantee it will affect your grade.
• Slides of lecture 1 and 3 and Slides of Lecture 2.
• Examples of abstract, outline, slides, paper and presentation from past years. (Note that the required length varied. Also requirements for reference on one of the papers (paper2.pdf) were "lighter" than in our course, so the student mentions certain facts -which are not common knowledge- without citation. It is still a wonderful paper.)

Quick Navigation

Document or Folder	Description
Syllabus	Course description and policies
Schedule	Topics, deadlines, and assignments
AI Policy	Guidelines for AI tool usage
Presentation	Presentation guidelines and rubric
Paper	Paper guidelines and rubric
Project	Creative project details
Slide Guidelines	Guidelines for presentation slides
Lecture Slides	Posted slides from class lectures
Topics	List of presentation/paper topics

Resources: Books, websites and databases to use during the semester

• Stony Brook Library is a great source of materials, and librarians that can help you.
• There is a great deal of relevant material in the digital database JSTOR, which you can access with your Stony Brook Net ID.
• Another great math database is MathSciNet MSC primary classification is 01. For more details, see here.
• Wikimedia Commons is a good repository of images
• The Internet Archive has many books about math history. You can also find books at Project Gutenberg. Both websites are free because they post material whose copyright has expired. On one hand this is good, because books are easily available, on the other, make sure that you also look for more recent texts (for instance, in the library.)
• Convergence from the Mathematical Association of America has Mathematical Treasures, a repository of primary sources, often with translation to English.
• Barrow-Green, June, Jeremy Gray, and Robin Wilson. The History of Mathematics: A Source-Based Approach Volume 1. American Mathematical Society, 2021 is one of my favorite books.
• Google scholar is great to get articles and well-formatted academic sources. It can also be useful to search for material.
• Cut the knot has interesting articles and references.
• Links: Readings, course materials and links organized by topic
• Important:
  • Make sure you read and follow the AI policy.
  • A video (from youtube or other platform) can help you understand a topic but it cannot be your reference unless it is "peer reviewed" or there are peer-reviewed-type reasons to believe in what the video says.
  • Wikipedia is often a good source for references, but it cannot be your reference.