Amir Alexander
Biography
My research illuminates the deep interconnections between mathematics and its social, cultural, and political setting. Critical mathematical developments, I have found, were inseparable from broader historical trends that motivated them and gave them meaning and purpose.
My latest book, Liberty’s Grid: A Founding Father, a Mathematical Dreamland, and the Shaping of America (2024) takes aim at the exceptional landscape of the United States: Why, it asks, is so much of America, both urban and rural, structured as a grid of straight lines and right angles? The startling answer is that the great grid was the brainchild of Thomas Jefferson, who sought to transform the rich American wilderness into a mathematical blank slate where freedom would reign and settlers forge an “Empire of Liberty.” To this day, the book shows, Americans physically inhabit Jefferson’s mind, imbibing his vision into their daily lives.
The interdependence of mathematics and the culture of modernity were also the subject of my previous books.
Geometrical Landscapes (2002), demonstrates how early modern geometers came to view their field as a hazardous voyage of exploration on the seas of mathematics, making possible the development of the calculus. Duel at Dawn: Heroes, Martyrs, and the Rise of Modern Mathematics (2010), focuses on the role that tragic stories, derived from the culture of high romanticism, played in the emergence of the modern practice of mathematics in the 19th century. Infinitesimal: The Dangerous Mathematical Theory that Shaped the Modern World (2014), is the story of the mathematical concept of the infinitely small, which in the 17th century became a battleground of competing visions of modernity. And Proof! How the World Became Geometrical (2019) tells the story of geometry, conceived over 2000 years ago, and how it came to shape the world we know today. From the gardens of Versailles to the streets of Washington DC and beyond, geometry has not only fashioned our landscapes, but also our art, our ideals, and our politics.
Publications
Books:
- Liberty’s Grid: A Founding Father, A Mathematical Dreamland, and the Shaping of America (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2024).
- Proof! How the World Became Geometrical (New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux / Scientific American, 2019).
- Infinitesimal: How a Dangerous Mathematical Theory Shaped the Modern World (New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux / Scientific American, 2014).
- Duel at Dawn: Heroes, Martyrs, and the Rise of Modern Mathematics, (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2010). Reissued in paperback, 2011.
- Geometrical Landscapes: The Voyages of Discovery and the Transformation of Mathematical Practice (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002). Recipient of the Choice magazine Outstanding Academic Title Award for 2003.
Selected Publications
- “Mathematics, 1770-1914” in Kapil Raj and Otto Sibum eds., The History of Modern Science (Paris: La Seuil, 2014) forthcoming.
- Examining the Square Root of D’oh!, review of Simon Singh, The Simpsons and their Mathematical Secrets (New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2013), New York Times, January 27, 2014.
- Brilliance Triumphs over Rejection, review of Edward Frenkel, Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality (New York: Basic Books, 2013), New York Times, November 19, 2013.
- From Voyagers to Martyrs: Towards a Storied History of Mathematics, in Apostolos Doxiadis and Barry Mazur eds., Circles Disturbed: The Interplay of Mathematics and Narrative (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012).
- The Skeleton in the Closet: Should Historians of Science Care about the History of Mathematics? Introduction to a focus section on the history of science and the history of mathematics, Isis, vol. 102, no. 3, September 2011.
- From Voyagers to Martyrs: Towards a Storied History of Mathematics, in Apostolos Doxiadis and Barry Mazur eds., Circles Disturbed (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), forthcoming. Introduction” to focus section on mathematical stories, Isis, vol. 97, no. 4, December 2006.
- Tragic Mathematics: Romantic Imagery and the Refounding of Mathematics, Isis, vol. 97, no. 4, December 2006. “Through the Mathematical Looking Glass,” in Siegfried Zielinsky and David Link eds., Variantology 2: On Deep Time Relations of Arts, Sciences, and Technologies (Cologne: Walther Konig, 2006).
- Hariot and Dee on Geographical Exploration and Mathematics: Did Scientific Imagery Make for New Scientific Practice? In Brett D. Steele and Tamera Dorland eds., The Heirs of Archimedes: Science and the Art of War Through the Age of Enlightenment, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005).
- Stories and Numbers: How a Romantic Tale of Geographical Exploration Transformed Mathematics, Historically Speaking: The Bulletin of the Historical Society, January 2004.
- Mathematics, in Jonathan Dewald ed., From Gutenberg to the Bastille: The Emergence of the Modern World, (New York: Scribner, 2003).
- “Exploration Mathematics: The Rhetoric of Discovery and the Rise of Infinitesimal Methods,” Configurations, vol. 9, no. 1, Winter 2001.
- “The Scientific Revolution,” in Arne Hessenbruch ed., A Reader’s Guide to the History of Science, (Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2000).
- “Lunar Maps and Coastal Outlines: Thomas Hariot’s Mapping of the Moon,” Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, vol. 29, No. 3, September 1998.
- “The Imperialist Space of Elizabethan Mathematics,” Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, vol. 26, No. 4, December 1995.
- “Israeli Television and the Problem of the Modern Subject,” Zeitschrift fur Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik, vol. 98, June 1995.”
