Nicolas Bourbaki

An important movement in twentieth-century mathematics was generated by the polycephalic mathematician Nicolas Bourbaki who published, beginning in 1939, a series of books which presented advanced mathematics in a highly abstract format. Much folklore has grown up around him, so this is an interesting topic for investigation.

You are encouraged to read some of his works, either in the original French or in English translation. One novelty of the works are the historical notes that are attached. Read some of them and discuss what you think of them as history. These notes have been collected into a single volume entitled Elements of the History of Mathematics, translated from the French by John Meldrum, Springer, c1994. An interesting side project would be to compare portions of this to what you can find in the standard histories of mathematics on the same topic.

References:

  • Liliane Beaulieu, "A Parisian cafe and ten proto-Bourbaki meetings (1934-1935)," The Mathematical Intelligencer, 15:1 (1993), 27-35. Professor Beaulieu has delved deeply into the history of the Bourbaki movement, including interviewing many of the participants. Check MathSciNet for her other publications on Bourbaki.

  • Ralph Boas, "Bourbaki and me," The Mathematical Intelligencer, 8:4 (1986), 84-85. Reprinted, along with other relevant items in, Lion Hunting & Other Mathematical Pursuits; A Collection of Mathematics, Verse and Stories by Ralph P. Boas, Jr., MAA, 1995 (edited by Gerald L. Alexanderson and Dale H. Mugler)

  • Paul Halmos, "Nicolas Bourbaki," Scientific American, 196:5 (May 1957), 88-99.

  • A. R. D. Mathias, The ignorance of Bourbaki, The Mathematical Intelligencer, 14:3 (1992), 4-13. Abstracted in the CMJ Media Highlights, 23 (1992), 442.

  • E. Roy Weintraub and Philip Mirowski, "The pure and the applied: Bourbakism comes to mathematical economics," Science in Context, 7:2 (1994), 245-272.

     

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    If you have comments, send email to V. Frederick Rickey at fred-rickey@usma.edu .
    Posted 2 December 1996. Revised 4 January 2003.