Apodictic discourse in ancient and modern Mathematics

Le discours apodictique dans les mathématiques anciennes et modernes

Satyanad Kichenassamy (1)

1 LMR - Laboratoire de Mathématiques de Reims

Many important texts in Mathematics have often been felt to be mathematically incomplete. We report on a series of papers that shows that well-known seemingly faulty texts by Brahmagupta, Baudhayana and Tartaglia actually contain the missing information encoded within their discursive structure : they are what we have called apodictic discourses. After reviewing these results, we suggest that (i) Ramanujan may have similarly embedded seemingly missing arguments in the structure of his exposition; (ii) the structure of teaching in the U.K. -- that differed from what is observed in France for example -- could account for the dogmatic style S. Ramanujan chose; (iii) a discourse analysis helps remove blinkers in modern Science as well.

Domaines: Histoire et perspectives sur les mathématiques [math.HO]; Théorie des nombres [math.NT]; Géométrie métrique [math.MG]

Satyanad Kichenassamy. Apodictic discourse in ancient and modern Mathematics. International Workshop “Srinivasa Ramanujan: The Man Beyond Infinity”, Dec 2020, Dharamshala, India. ⟨hal-03088818⟩