Abstract
Thirty years ago, at the end of the sixties, the history of Greek mathematics was considered an almost dosed subject, just like physics was at the turn of the twentieth century. People felt that they had constructed a definitive picture of the essence of Greek mathematics, even though some details remained unclear due to irrecoverable document losses. Critical editions had been established, mainly by Heiberg, while two of the great scholars of the history of Greek mathematics, Tannery and Zeuthen, had built on this material. Then, the standard book [Heath 1921] brought much of this material together. Through his discoveries in Mesopotamian mathematics, Neugebauer was led to think that he had given substance to legends about the Oriental origin of Greek mathematics. Originally published in Dutch in 1950, the book [van der Waerden 1954] reflected scholars' self-confidence in this period.
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Saito, K. (2014). Mathematical Reconstructions Out, Textual Studies In: 30 Years in the Historiography of Greek Mathematics [1998]. In: Sidoli, N., Van Brummelen, G. (eds) From Alexandria, Through Baghdad. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36736-6_2
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