About:

This public talk was ICMS's annual Mary Somerville lecture.

About the talk:

Why do we speak of “Hindu-Arabic numerals,” “Roman numerals” and “Egyptian multiplication”? Karine argues that expressions of this kind stem from a way of writing the history of numbers that needs to be rethought. In her view, such an approach to numbers conceals the actual diversity of numerals used in the ancient and medieval worlds, as well as the diversity of their uses. This presentation shed light on aspects of this diversity and showed why, seen from this angle, some numerals can in fact be considered as the first mathematical formulas ever used.

About the speaker:

Karine Chemla (she/her), Senior Researcher (exceptional class) at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), is affiliated with the research group SPHERE (Université Paris Cité (former Paris 7 Paris Diderot; Université Paris Cité) & CNRS). Her work focuses, from a historical anthropology viewpoint, on the relationship between mathematics and the various cultures in the context of which it is practiced.