Anna Kiel Steensen, Mikkel Willum Johansen, Morten Misfeldt
In this paper, we wish to explore the role that textual representations play in the creation of new mathematical objects. We do so by analyzing texts by Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736-1813) and Évariste Galois (1811-1832), which are seen as central to the historical development of the mathematical concept of groups. In our analysis, we consider how the material features of representations relate to the changes in conceptualization that we see in the texts.Against this backdrop, we discuss the idea that new mathematical concepts, in general, are increasingly abstract in the sense of being detached from material configurations...
December 15, 2023: Science in Context