Themes Observed and Lessons Learned in the NMAH Mathematics Collections

Time: 6:00pm

Location: Saint Augustine Center Room 300, Villanova University

For over a decade, the Smithsonian Institution has gradually been digitizing catalog records for its 137 million objects and making them available to the public via http://collections.si.edu. More recently, staff members at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History (NMAH) have been organizing object records into groups and posting them as mini-exhibits at http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object-groups. Thanks to the generosity of slide rule collectors Ed and Diane Straker, I have been able to assist with both efforts for the past 27 months. This talk will provide a tour of the resources available on these websites, particularly as they relate to mathematics. Since my appointment is winding down, I will also utilize this opportunity to reflect on how we might better understand the history of mathematics by looking closely at object groups. These groups include slide rules, planimeters, sectors, protractors, dividers and drawing compasses, scale rules, parallel rules, and sets of drawing instruments—in all, over 650 objects and related documentation from the NMAH mathematics collections. [This is a completely different talk from my presentation at the AMS Eastern Section Meeting at Temple University in October.]