ciencias fácticas y el desarrollo del propio lenguaje matemático.
Se debe conocer la Historia, es una de las máximas de Struik. Agregaríamos: debemos saber de donde proviene un conocimiento, cómo se ubica en relación a otros temas y tratar de prever hacia
dónde se va.
Este gran maestro escribe dos libros pedagógicamente extraordinarios: Lectures on Classical Differential
Geometry (está traducido a muchos idioma y existe una versión en español. La Editorial Dover tiene una versión barata).
A Concise History of:Mathematics. Posiblemente uno de los libros que mayor influencia han ejercido.
Struik convive, trabaja. produce y critica los grandes movimientos en las ciencias del SXX y finales del SIXX
-
El formalismo de Hilbert
-
El desarrollo del neopositivismo en el Círculo de Viena y los resultados de
Kurt Gödel
- La escuela de Bourbaki
El mcarthysmo lo persigue en Estados Unidos donde él rehusa citar nombres de personas y es expulsado de la academia y por ende de la universidad durante los años 1951-1955. Así que también fue víctima de la guerra fría. Es reinstalado en el MIT en 1956 luego de que logra demostrar ante la Corte Suprema que las acciones contra él eran inconstitucionales .
En 1965 visita la Universidad de Costa Rica durante el segundo semestre. En esa casa de estudios imparte un curso de Geometría Diferencial Clásica y dicta varias conferencias sobre temas de Historia de las Matemáticas. Fue desde entonces un gran amigo.
Como hemos indicado el profesor Struik es uno de los matemáticos más importantes del
Siglo XX. En la red se encuentra traducido su libro:
La Matemática, sus orígenes y su desarrollo
En la dirección: www.elaleph.com
El libro se encuentra comprimido (zip) en formato pdf. La clave de acseso en AdobeReader es:
FG52VN (Si tienen dificultades bajándolo, me pueden escribir con su dirección electrónica a
vernor.arguedas@ucr.ac.cr con mucho gusto se los envio ).
A continuación transcribimos, en palabras del prof Struik, sus apreciaciones personales
sobre la ciencia y su historia, la política, las matemáticas y su evolución.
Esto ocurrió en ocasión de su cumpleaños 97 en noviembre de 1991 en el MIT (Massachusett Institute of
Technology). No quise traducir el texto para no influenciar la lectura.
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"Observations of a historian of science
by Dirk J. Struik
It is natural that people ask me to what I
attribute my long life
in good health. I could answer, "Wine, women and
song."
Or the Spinoza motto: hagere et laetari. Be
active and
cheerful about it. But the best answer is The
Three M's -
Mathematics, Marriage, Marxism. There are other
M's, too,
of occasional use: Meditation (with a pipe and
slippers in
an easy chair) or Moderation (for example in
eating). But I
like to dwell for a moment on Mathematics and
Marxism.
I got my interest in Marxism from my Rotterdam
mathematics
teacher, who was a socialist and member of a
small marxist
party that, in the years after World War 1,
stressed the
dangers of imperialism and was against the
facile
revisionism of the leaders of the large Social
Democratic
Labor Party. The party was small, but had
excellent intellect
in its ranks, who could teach me the power of
marxist
analysis. One has been frequently quoted, as
late as the
student movement of the 60s. - Professor
Pannekoek -
Professor Pancake to you, who at that time had
developed
his own theory of so-called council communism.
When World War came in 1914, I saw that the
marxian
analysis of the world situation had been correct.
I joined
that small party - which in l918 became the
Dutch
Communist Party - and continued to study Marx
and
Engels with their German pupils, especially
Kautsky,
Mehring and Rosa Luxemburg.
And asked myself what marxism could tell me
about
mathematics. I came to certain conclusions and
you can
read about it, for instance in Science and
Society, but I
won't go into that at present. What I would like
to say is that
socialism - social-democratic first, communist
later, has
had since many ups and downs. Let me quote you
a
passage from Marx from The 18th Brumaire:
Bourgeois revolutions, like those of the 18th
century, storm
swiftly from success to success, their dramatic
effects
outdo each other, men and things seem set in
sparkling
brilliants, ecstasy is the everyday spirit but
they are short-
lived, soon they have attained their zeniths,
and a long
crapulent depression seizes society before it
learns
soberly to assimilate the results of its storm-and-stress
period.
On the other hand, proletarian revolutions, like
those of the
nineteenth century, criticize themselves
constantly,
interrupt themselves continually in their own
course, come
back to the apparently accomplished in order to
bring it
afresh, deride with unmerciful thoroughness and
inadequacies,weaknesses and paltriness of their
first
attempts, seem to throw down their adversary
only in order
that he may draw new strength from the earth and
rise
again, more gigantic before them, and recoil
again and
again from the indefinite prodigiousness of
their own aims,
until a situation has been created which makes
all turning
back impossible, and the conditions themselves
cry out:
Hic Rhodus, hic Salta! [Here is Rhodes, leap
here] Here is
the rose, here dance!
In other words, proletarian revolutions go from
defeat to
defeat, to emerge even stronger
afterwards.Marx's analysis
of the past bourgeois revolutions - the Dutch,
British and
French - is rather keen. How about his analysis
and
prophecies for the revolutions of the working
classes? For
the struggle toward social justice?
Take the revolution of 1848, the first which we
can speak
about as a proletarian revolution, or so Marx
and Engels
thought. It was beaten down. Little, then, was
heard of
socialism. But then it grew and grew, in parties
and trade
unions, and the First International was born in
1864.
Then came the Paris Commune of 1871, destroyed
in a
terrible massacre under the sponsorship of
Thiers and
Bismarck. I once joined the parade in Paris, on
a late May
day in the 30s to the Pere Lachaise Cemetery ,
where the
Communards were shot down, men and women, before
Mur
des Federes. Wreaths were placed, and we sang
the
Internationale: "Debout, les damnes de la
Terre."
Silence again. The First International died, and
with it, it
seemed, socialism. But within 10 years there
were mighty
trade unions and socialist parties that
organized, in 1889,
in the Second International. Socialism seemed so
strong it
looked that it could prevent the threatened war.
Then came 1914. Again the magnificent edifice of
socialism
collapsed. Facile pacifism and bureaucracy
killed the
International. Nationalism stuck up its head -
it sounds
familiar!
Again out of the defeat came victory: the
Russian
Revolution and its consequences. The formation
of the
Third International, now with members in state
authority. A
powerful socialism.
Came 1941 and the German invasion of the Soviet
Union.
Again it seemed a massive defeat of socialism
was likely.
Hitler in Moscow within six weeks, crowed the
pundits.
Germans and Russians will destroy each other,
oracled
Senator Harry Truman hopefully. But again - and
again
with enormous shedding of tears and blood, arose
a new
period for socialism, now officially in many
states,
eventually on four continents.
Now again, in 1989, a collapse, due to
corruption,
bureaucracy in the ruling communist parties, and
the belief
that socialism could be built up in a police
state. The cold
war only aggravated the situation.
If history teaches a lesson, it is that out of
this a new and
better socialism will grow. A socialist movement
of a new
kind. Because a new crisis has arisen: the Earth
itself is
menaced. Red must ally with Green in the future,
Red-
Green!
I am convinced that many of you will participate
in this new
and exciting battle, in which the emancipation
of the
working classes will be not only be the
emancipation of
mankind, but the preservation of the Earth.
As an afterthought, I would like to add that we
can start the
cycle of defeats with Babeuf's "Equals,"
destroyed in 1797,
but an inspiration to the revolutionaries of
1830 and 1848." |
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Algunas
referencias sobre Dirk Struik
Artículos:
- G Alberts, On
connecting socialism and mathematics : Dirk Struik, Jan Burgers, and
Jan Tinbergen, Historia Math. 21 (3) (1994), 280-305.
- Dirk Jan Struik, NTM
Schr. Geschichte Natur. Tech. Medizin 25 (2) (1988),
5-23.
- Ganitanand, Professor
Dirk Jan Struik, the first winner of the highest prize in history of
mathematics, Ganita Bharati 14 (1-4) (1992), 62-65.
- T Koetsier, Dirk
Struik's autumn 1994 visit to Europe : Including "My European
extravaganza of October, 1994" by Struik, Nieuw Arch. Wisk.
(4) (1) 14 (1996), 167-176.
- D Riepe, Dirk Struik
and the sociology of science, in For Dirk Struik (Dordrecht,
1974), 581-591.
- D E Rowe, Dirk Jan
Struik and his contributions to the history of mathematics, Historia
Math. 21 (3) (1994), 245-273.
- D E Rowe, Interview
with Dirk Jan Struik (Czech), Pokroky Mat. Fyz. Astronom. 35
(3) (1990), 136-152.
- D E Rowe, Interview
with Dirk Jan Struik, Math. Intelligencer 11 (1)
(1989), 14-26.
- D J Struik,
Publications of D J Struik, in For Dirk Struik (Dordrecht,
1974), xix-xxvii.
- D Struik, A letter
from Dirk Struik, in For Dirk Struik (Dordrecht, 1974),
xiii-xvii.
- To Dirk J Struik at
eighty-two, Historia Math. 3 (2) (1976), 133.
- H M Walther,
Reminiscences [concerning Dirk J Struik] of a former MIT student, Historia
Math. 21 (3) (1994), 274-275.
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