BSHM 1-day meeting

British Society for the History of Mathematics & Isaac Newton Institute

Doing Mathematics in the Archive

May 16^th, 2026
Isaac Newton Institute, Cambridge

This 1-day meeting will explore how archival work can be mathematically fruitful and how a deep engagement with the mathematical content of archival materials can reveal new historical or philosophical insight.

Michael Potter (University of Cambridge) will speak on what we can learn from the extensive unpublished papers of a selection of mathematical philosophers. Aoife Kearins (University of Oxford) will examine the essential role of correspondence in the mathematisation of the sciences in 19^th-century Britain. Emmylou Haffner (CNRS) will uncover the different textual practices used by Bourbaki in their collective writing process. Finally, a collaborative working group of mathematicians and historians have been working on the unpublished programme for dynamics proposed by Birkhoff in 1941, and we will hear an update on this project from June Barrow-Green (Open University), Andrew Burbanks (Portsmouth University), Dan Rust (Open University), and Reem Yassawi (Queen Mary University of London). A full programme and book of abstracts can be found on the BSHM website.

This is a ticketed event, and tickets can be purchased via Eventbrite:  Doing Mathematics in the Archive Tickets, Saturday, May 16  •  10:30 AM – 5 PM | Eventbrite

If you have any queries please do reach out to the BSHM Meetings Coordinator via brigitte.stenhouse@bshm.ac.uk.