Please Email comments or suggestions to:curtin@nku.edu or to:otero@xavier.xu.edu
The Third Meeting of the ORESME Reading Group January 29-30, 1999 Xavier University In attendance: Bart Braden, Northern Kentucky University Chris Christensen, Northern Kentucky University Dan Curtin, Northern Kentucky University, host Dick Davitt, University of Louisville Chuck Holmes, Miami University Chuck Groetsch, University of Cincinnati David Kullman, Miami University Danny Otero, Xavier University Dick Pulskamp, Xavier University Fred Rickey, US Military Academy Linda Saliga, University of Akron We met for dinner Friday evening at The Finish Line, specially chosen to lie within the corporation lines of beautiful Erlanger, KY. The food was good and the service was servicable. But a good time was had by all. We reconvened at Hinkle Hall on the XU campus to tackle Felix Klein's "A Comparative Review of Recent Researches in Geometry" (translated by M. W. Haskell and published in the second volume of the Bull. NY Math. Soc., July, 1893, pp. 215-249). The Saturday morning session continued over coffee and donuts. We discussed the long and involved history of the Erlangenprogramm, Klein's vision of the algebraization of geometry. We considered in particular the importance that Lie had on Klein's views of where research in geometry was headed and the influence among American mathematicians that he carried as a result of his visit to the Chicago area in 1893. The discussion was aided by a number of books and articles that the participants brought along, and especially by the bibliography prepared by Dick Davitt. We soon realized that a serious discussion of the genesis, development, and especially, the impact of the Erlangenprogramm would require marshalling many more resources than we had prepared at the time of the meeting. Indeed, much of Saturday morning was dedicated to determining what further resources members would investigate for our next meeting in the fall. Here's a list: Kullman, Saliga: The Evanston Colloquium Davitt: Famous Problems of Elementary Geometry by Klein Braden: Felix Klein and Sophus Lie by I. M. Yaglom Christensen: Lectures on the Icosahedron by Klein Rickey: Elementary Mathematics from an Advanced Standpoint, vol. 1, by Klein Holmes, Pulskamp: Elementary Mathematics from an Advanced Standpoint, vol. 2, by Klein Groetsch: Klein's influence on applied mathematics and education Curtin: Klein on projective geometry Otero, Holmes: Felix Klein, Biographien hervorragender Naturwissenschaftler, Techniker und Mediziner, by Renate Tobies and Fritz Konig Otero: The Unification of Geometry (Ch. 17 of The Nature and Growth of Modern Mathematics), by Edna Kramer Finally, the membership agreed to schedule the next meeting of ORESME for September 17-18, 1999, at Northern Kentucky University. Respectfully submitted, Danny Otero