Possible Topics for Papers

The following is a list of topics that students have chosen in the past for their research papers. You are free to choose any topic you wish as long as it involves history and mathematics (and does not deal with Your Mathematician). You may wish to choose a topic that will relate to your teaching later. Don't choose a topic that duplicates what you have done elsewhere.

  1. History of perfect numbers from Euclid to the day before yesterday.
  2. The influence of social needs on the uses of mathematics.
  3. History of the binomial theorem.
  4. The quadratic equation.
  5. An insight into Islamic mathematics.
  6. Goldbach and his famous conjecture.
  7. The History of logarithms and logarithm tables.
  8. Geometrical mathematical recreations.
  9. Prime numbers.
  10. The history of trigonometry.
  11. Charles Babbage and his engines.
  12. Some revolutionary curves.
  13. Angle trisection.
  14. Relationship of Mathematics to Music.
  15. Comparison of Algebra texts: The turn of the century and today.
  16. American mathematics prior to 1875.
  17. The influence of social needs on the uses of mathematics.
  18. How our view of the early history of mathematics has changed in the last 100 years.
  19. The dark ages were dark for mathematics too.
  20. Is mathematics discovered or invented?
  21. How new was the new math?
  22. Women mathematicians.
  23. The books that most changed our present geometry texts.
  24. The remarkable Bernoulli family.
  25. The rise of periodical literature and how it effected mathematics.
  26. The changing notion of function.
  27. The calculus priority dispute.
  28. The history of linear programming.
  29. Quality control, with emphasis on control charts.
  30. The role of cryptology in World War II.
  31. Navigation and mathematics.
  32. The Platonic solids.
  33. The books that most changed our present geometry texts.
  34. Mathematics of the early Rabbis.
  35. History of Hindu Mathematics
  36. The history of pi. [A difficult topic to do well.]

    Needless to say, many students choose to write about the life and work of an individual mathematician. A few recent examples are: Archimedes, Banneker, Cantor, Carroll, DaVinci, Descartes, Fermat, Napier, Newcomb, and Noether.

    Some topics are not very suitable because it is difficult to include a significant mathematical component. A few examples:

  37. History of the metric system.
  38. Finger reckoning.
  39. Poetry and mathematics.
  40. Numerology.
  41. Symbols of algebra.
  42. A Mathematical look at Egypt's pyramids.
I also give the students guidance on writing their research papers.

If you have comments, send email to V. Frederick Rickey at fred-rickey@usma.edu .