The Portuguese National Seminary on History
of Mathematics
The Portuguese National Seminary on History of Mathematics (Seminário
Nacional de História da Matemática – SNHM) was founded
in January 1988, following the celebrations of the bicentenary of the death
of the distinguished Portuguese mathematician José Anastácio da
Cunha (1744-1787). There were a number of meetings on History of Mathematics
related to this celebration in several parts of Portugal, namely in Coimbra,
Évora and Lisboa. In Lisboa an International Meeting was held in which
da Cunha’s work was analysed in his aspects of a writer, a cultivated man
of his age and a mathematician. Being conscious of some very important gaps
concerning both the popularisation and the research in History of Mathematics
in Portugal, (especially in what concerned Portuguese mathematics) some people
got together. Members of the Universities of Lisboa, Coimbra, Porto and Minho
decided to create a structure that could promote the elaboration of a national
network of contacts between researchers and other people interested in History
of Mathematics. This could simultaneously promote collaboration and intervention
in themes in this area. The importance of the integration within the international
community of historians of mathematics was not forgotten, as the presence of
researchers from other countries in every national meeting has enhanced. Since
the mid-nineties the Seminary has become a section of the Portuguese Mathematical
Society (Sociedade Portuguesa de Matemática - SPM).
SNHM has been making its action felt in a constant way since
the date of its foundation. As an organised structure integrating SPM, by means
of the regular organisation of national meetings or thematic conferences of
international character, and individually, by means of its members. There have
been interventions that span from popularising sessions in secondary schools
to the elaboration of textbooks for university teaching and the edition of proceedings
from conferences on the History of Mathematics.
The National Meetings of the SNHM
1st Meeting: Braga, University of Minho, April 1988.
Invited speaker: Ubiratan D'Ambrósio, then at the University of Campinas,
Brazil.
2nd Meeting: Lisboa, Interdisciplinary Complex of the University of
Lisbon, November 1988. Invited speaker: Christian Houzel, University of
Paris XIII.
3rd Meeting: Lisboa, Interdisciplinary Complex of the University of
Lisbon, March 1989. Invited speaker: Jean Dhombres, CNRS and University
of Nantes.
4th Meeting: Coimbra, Departament of Mathematics of the University
of Coimbra, April 1990. Invited speaker: Ivor Grattan-Guinness, The Royal
Society, London.
5th Meeting: Lisboa, Faculty of Sciences, March 1993. Invited
speaker: Eduardo Ortiz Imperial College, University of London.
6th Meeting: Coimbra, Departament of Mathematics of the University
of Coimbra, May 1994. Invited speaker: John Fauvel, Open University, Milton
Keynes.
7th Meeting: Coimbra, Departament of Mathematics of the University
of Coimbra, November 1995. Invited speakers: Catherine Jami, CNRS, Paris,
and Han Qi, Institute for the History of Natural Science, Beijing.
8th Meeting: Porto, Department of Pure Mathematics of the Faculty
of Sciences, July 1996. Invited speakers: Ubiratan D'Ambrósio, Brazilian
Society for the History of Science, Universidade Estadual Paulista, and Circe
Mary Silva da Silva, Universidade Estadual do Espírito Santo, Brazil.
9th Meeting: Coimbra, Departament of Mathematics of the University
of Coimbra, November 1997. Invited speakers: Ubiratan D'Ambrósio
and Eleanor Robson, University of Oxford.
10th Meeting: Monte da Caparica, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, January
1998. Invited speaker: Ivor Grattan-Guinness.
11th Meeting: Departament of Matematics of the University of Aveiro,
January 1999. Invited speaker: Eberhard Knobloch, Technische Universität
Berlin.
12th Meeting: Lisboa, Interdisciplinary Complex of the University
of Lisbon, December 1999. Invited speakers: David Crilly, Anglia University,
Cambridge, and Óscar Abdounur, University of S. Paulo, Brazil.
13th Meeting: Escola Superior de Educação de Castelo
Branco, May 2001. Invited speaker: Gert Schubring, University of Bielefeld.
14th Meeting: Departament of Mathemátics of the University
of Évora, April 2002. Invited speakers: Hans Niels Jahnke, University
of Essen, and Reinhard Kahle, University of Tubingen.
Luís Saraiva
Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
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