Mathematics in Encyclopedias

Encyclopedias provide an interesting first place to look for historical information. Often they provide references to seek out for additional information. But the encyclopedias themselves can be an interesting thing to study.

Recently, a colleague, Tom Archibald, had a copy of the geometry article from the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Since a copy of the eleventh edition was also at hand, we compared them. We were surprised to find how they agreed and how they differed. They were signed by different authors, yet they contained many of the same paragraphs. We discussed how the articles reflected changes in geometry between the two editions.

So here is an interesting project. Look at several editions of the Encyclopedia Brittanica and compare the articles on some mathematical topic.



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