Mathematics in Norway. III: The ``Danish period'' before Abel's appearance (Q2173466): Difference between revisions

As stated in the title, this is the third article in a series (for Parts I and II see [ibid. 12, No. 1, 36--40 (2004; Zbl 1082.01001); ibid. 19, No. 1, 49--55 (2011; Zbl 1223.01007)]). However, it does not presuppose these but is a very readable independent article, not based on a new reading of sources but a synthesis of earlier secondary literature (often not easily accessible). The ``Danish period'' in Norwegian history covers the period 1380--1814, where Norway first shared the Danish royal house with diminishing independence, and was then fully incorporated in 1536. The article begins by a description of the political history of the period and of the history of educational institutions with a particular eye to mathematics education, and presents three teachers who can count as mathematicians: \begin{itemize} \item Ambrosius Rhode (1605--1696, born in Saxony), about whose mathematics little is known; \item Diderich Christian Fester (1732--1811, Danish-born), self-taught and with widespread Enlightenment interests spanning moral as well as technical and natural matters; also writing on higher analysis, a topic he will have had no occasion to teach; \item Christian Holberg Arentz (1736--1835, born in Norway); his mother was the niece, not (as here claimed) the grand-daughter of the writer and scholar Ludvig Holberg; studied in Göttingen and Leiden; independent discoverer of analogues to Cramer's methods for solving linear equation systems. \end{itemize} Institutions of higher learning were few (and generally mediocre) during the period, in Denmark as well as Norway. A university existed in Copenhagen since 1479, where Norwegian students were supposed to study. A ``Knights' Academy'' at university level for young noblemen in Sorø, Denmark, had the Norwegian Jens Kraft as one of its most outstanding teachers, but no Norwegian students are mentioned. ``Royal Societies for the sciences'' were instituted, in Denmark in 1742, in Norway in 1760; Fester and Arentz were connected to the latter. A Norwegian mathematical school for officers was created in 1750, a Mining Academy in 1757: the latter was integrated in the university that was created in 1811. The end of the article is dedicated to Caspar Wessel, the first Norwegian who might have had a general impact on mathematics, if only his ``On the analytical representation of direction'' from 1797 had not been published in Danish in a mathematically peripheral region (Denmark); as it were, it was only discovered a century later, when both the geometric representation of complex numbers and vectors were since long familiar.