Math Education Seminar: The Experimental Geometer: How John Wallis Saved Mathematics in Restoration England

Amir Alexander, UCLA

Title: The Experimental Geometer: How John Wallis Saved Mathematics in Restoration England

Abstract: At a time when mathematicians are rethinking the foundations of their field, it is worth recalling an earlier crisis and how it was dealt with. In the late 17th century the Royal Society championed an experimental approach to the study of nature as the proper path to the advancement of knowledge and the preservation of civic peace. Mathematics was admired, but also feared, as dangerously dogmatic and coercive. In response John Wallis, the leading mathematician in the group, developed a radical new approach: Whereas traditional mathematics prided itself on irrefutable deductive proofs, Wallis’ methodology relied on material intuition, inductive reasoning, and truth-claims founded on agreement, not coercion. It was a new mathematics, designed to align the field with the Society’s empirical and consensus-driven approach.