Below you will find the preliminary plan for what we will work on in our fourteen classes.

In the column Reading, you find three pieces of information:

Texts that we are going to talk about in class. It is a good idea to take a look at these texts before the class even if we will have some time during the class to read them.
Background literature on what we talk about in class. This is primarily meant for review after class.
Slides used in class. Observe that these will not be complete in any sense and it won't be possible to review a missed class by only looking at the slides.

#	Date	Meta-content	Content	Reading	Events
1	Tu 30/8	Format and overview of the course requirements and assessment	Prehistoric mathematics (Babylon and Egypt). Numbers and counting; zero; positional systems. Scribes and mathematical training.	A cuneiform table A problem from the Rhind papyrus Sample Essay 1, Sample Essay 2 Katz, Ch. 1 Stedall, Ch. 1.1 Fauvel-Gray: Ch. 1.D, 1.E The Ishango bone, Egypt, Babylon
2	Fr 2/9	How to write an essay: content, structure, argumentation, etc.; grading criteria	Ancient Greek mathematics. Reception of Babylonian & Egyptian mathematics. Where this knowledge came from & what it was used for. Scholarship in Greece and the culture of commentaries. Proofs, definitions, and axioms. Euclid's elements.	Timeline of some Greek mathematicians On essay writing: here and here. Any one of: a) Prop I.17 (Barrow) b) Prop I.17 (Byrne) c) Prop I.17 (Billingsley); Katz, Ch. 2-6 (read excerpts), in particular Ch. 3 Stedall, Ch. I.2-3 Fauvel-Gray, Ch. 3.A, 3.B. An online, browsable version of Euclid's Elements by David Joyce Slides on Essay writing, Euclid's Elements	Start Essay 1
3	Tu 6/9	Approaches to a mathematical text; questions to ask.	Equation solving. Mathematical competition, math as an art. conflict and stakes, claims and authorship.	Al-Jabr, Cossists bickering On asking questions about a historical text: Wardhaugh Stedall, Ch. 1.4, 12.1 Katz, Ch. 9, 12.1-3 Slides on equation solving	Quiz 1 on Ancient and Greek mathematics
4	Fr 9/9	What is good and constructive peer review? Critical reading of sources	Algebra vs Geometry. Units: the megalithic unit Geometric algebra; Descartes, Viète	megalithic unit, Thom's Statistical Examination, Analytic, Descartes's analytic method, La Géométrie, Fauvel-Gray, 1.C (megalithic unit), 3.G (opinions on Greek algebra vs geometry) Katz, 14.2 Stedall, Ch. 2.3 Slides on geometric algebra	Submit Essay 1 Start Essay 2
5	Tu 13/9		The mathematical profession, motivations, careers: Fermat and friends; universities, monasteries	Fermat Stedall, 6.1 Katz, 14.4 P. Tannery and C. Henry, Oeuvres de Fermat, Gauthier-Villars 1891 M. S. Mahoney, The mathematical career of Pierre de Fermat, 1601–1665, Princeton University Press, 1994 Slides on Fermat	Quiz 2 on Arab and medieval mathematics, Equation solving and Algebra vs Geometry
6	Fr 16/9	Grading criteria for good peer review	The relations between mathematics, philosophy, religion, and the supernatural	Plato, The Meno dialog (excerpt); Steiner, Mathematics and Occultism (excerpt) The rest of the Meno dialog and Mathematics and Occultism, Katz, 2.2 Slides on the beginnings of infinitesimal calculus	Submit Essay 2 Start peer review
7	Tu 20/9	Dealing with peer review and rebuttals	The birth of calculus: infinitesimals, Newton, Leibniz	Newton's letters, response by Hobbes Stedall, Ch. 3–4 Katz, Ch. 15–16 Fauvel-Gray, 12.C Slides on further developments of indivisibles, Newton and Leibniz	End peer review Start rebuttal
8	Fr 23/9		The development of rigidity in mathematical arguments (with focus on calculus); logic	Euler defending infinitesimals, Cauchy on continuity, A page from Principia Stedall, Ch. 10-11,16 Katz, Ch. 22 Slides: on rigor, logic	End rebuttal Start Essay 3 SF2725: topic selection
9	Tu 27/9	Analyzing a text with only partial understanding of the mathematics.	Formalism and intuitionism. Set theory, Cantor	Hilbert on foundations, Weyl on foundations Katz, Ch. 2.3, 21.3 William Ewald, From Kant to Hilbert: A Source Book in the Foundations of Mathematics, Vol. II, 1996. Ch. 24 (David Hilbert), 25 (L.E.J. Brouwer) Slides: grundlagenkrise.pdf	Quiz 3 on Calculus
10	Fr 30/9	Feedback on peer review and rebuttals. Critical reading of secondary sources.	Probability theory: games, bets, odds, combinatorics. What is applied and what is pure mathematics?	Hacking on probability, Mishnah, Pascal to Fermat Stedall, Ch. 7 Katz, Ch. 14.3, 18 N. L. Rabinovitch, Probability and Statistical Inference in Ancient and Medieval Jewish Literature, University of Toronto Press, 1973 G. Reith, The Age of Chance: Gambling in Western Culture, Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought, 1999 Slides on probability	Submit Essay 3 Start peer review
	Tu 4/10	lecture cancelled			End peer review Start rebuttal
11	Fr 7/10	Analyzing a text with only partial understanding of the mathematics. How to do research like a historian; Finding relevant sources	Equation solving part II: Abel, Galois, the birth of modern algebra. Genius and genius cult. Mathematics and politics, radicalism	Letter by Galois, Lagrange on third order equations Stedall, Ch. 12.3, 13 Katz, Ch. 21.2 Slides on Galois	End rebuttal Start Essay 4
12	Tu 11/10		Mathematics arising from Fermat's Last Theorem. The birth of abstract algebra. Women in mathematics: Germaine, Noether.	Kummer on ideal numbers Stedall, Ch. 13.2 Katz, Ch. 21 Harold M. Edwards, Fermat's Last Theorem: A Genetic Introduction to Algebraic Number Theory, Springer GTM 50, 1977 Slides on FLT and Noether	Quiz 4 on modern algebra and probability theory
13	Fr 14/10		Mathematics and mathematical institutions in the 20th century Popular reception of mathematics The history of teaching mathematics	AMS subject classification, Encyclopedia of Mathematics Education, Stephen Lerman, ed. Springer 2014, The Whetstone of Witte (Extraction of Roots), Klein's book (Preface), Hej matematik (in Swedish)	Submit Essay 4