Ramble, Part 40: Meanwhile, Off the Coast

While continental mathematicians were wrestling with the idea of the complex numbers, mathematics in Great Britain was undergoing a curious retrograde period. Where Gauss was leading the way to the acceptance of complex numbers, a movement led by one Francis Maseres was rejecting even the negative numbers. British mathematics had been in the doldrums since the Leibniz-Newton quarrel, but this was not merely stagnation; it was regression. Fortunately for Britain and for the mathematical world, it resulted in a powerful and conceptually explosive reaction. More under the cut.

( A Feather for Peacock )

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