Objective: In this project we propose to go deeper into new challenges and practices, in order to build a new perspective on mathematics and engineering in society. Our focus will be the Spanish framework, with all its complexity, and its relations with the European and American contexts. Mathematics, including “pure” and “mixed” mathematics, developed and spread in the period under consideration to constitute, throughout the 19th century, different disciplines: mathematics as we can understand it today, engineering, architecture or physics. The emergence of “scientific” engineering was a process of convergence and fusion between the tradition of mathematics and craft, mechanical or construction practices. In the beginning, this was a process of European scope, but it soon expanded to other continents, to the Orient or to the Americas. Our study objectives are: A) The cultivation of mathematics in the Iberian Peninsula in the 16th and 17th centuries; the process of consolidation of the algebraization of mathematics in the 17th and early 18th centuries, with special attention to the works of Gregory, Mengoli, Wallis and some of Leibniz’s scientific contributions. The introduction of infinity and the origins, development and diffusion of differential and integral calculus are also part of our guide, as well as, the mathematical instruments that in some way are the link between pure mathematics and practical mathematics. Especially relevant are the institutions of civil and military education; the “mathematical courses”, from the 17th to the 19th century, including those of Hérigone, Serrao Pimentel, Azebedo Fortes, Tosca, Lucuce, Cerdà, Padilla, Bails, Ozanam and Calbó. B) Engineering and scientific and technical heritage; technical and scientific collections in Catalonia in technical schools, museums and RACAB; Santponç and steam technology around 1800; professional engineering and scientific engineering; engineering and sustainability: the case of solar energy (Chile, United States, Greece, Russia, Italy, Portugal, France, Spain). C) The history of science and technology and the teaching of science and technology; historical studies; experiences in the classroom The history of science and technology constitutes a pillar in the integral cultural formation of future scientists and is essential for the development of our society. These study objectives are complemented by two other transversal ones. On the one hand, it is about studying the role of women in engineering and mathematics in the centuries we study, recovering and making known the experience of women scientists in history. In fact, highlighting the contribution of women in the construction of society, in each historical period, provides a new perspective of society. On the other hand, the comparative perspective of our research on mathematics and engineering with Portugal, France, Russia, Turkey, Colombia, Czechoslovakia and Chile constitutes a new challenge and contributes to give a new perspective to the results of the project. Most of the research related to the other objectives can be dealt with both: the gender perspective and the comparative perspective. Our project brings together a very important group of researchers working on the history of mathematics and on the history of technology, who are given opportunities for development.

Period: 2021-2023

Research group participants: Maria Rosa Massa (scientific coordinator), Monica Blanco (scientific coordinator)