Jeanne Peiffer (born 20 August 1948 in
Mersch
Mersch (, ; ) is a commune and town in central Luxembourg, situated in the canton of the same name. It is situated at the confluence of the rivers Alzette, Mamer and Eisch.
, the town of Mersch, which lies in the centre of the commune, ha ...
) is a Luxembourgish
historian of mathematics
The history of mathematics deals with the origin of discoveries in mathematics and the History of mathematical notation, mathematical methods and notation of the past. Before the modern age and the worldwide spread of knowledge, written examples ...
. She is Emeritus Research Director at the
CNRS
The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe.
In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...
, at the Center Alexandre Koyré of the CNRS, and at the
École des hautes études en sciences sociales
The School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (, EHESS) is a graduate ''grande école'' and '' grand établissement'' in Paris focused on academic research in the social sciences. The school awards Master and PhD degrees alone and conj ...
(EHESS).
Biography
Peiffer studied at the University of Luxembourg where she was a professor after being a student of
René Taton
René Taton (4 April 1915 – 9 August 2004) was a French mathematician, historian of science, and long co-chief-editor of the ''Revue d'histoire des sciences''. He was awarded both the highest lifetime achievement awards in the field of history ...
.
She was co-editor (with ) of the correspondence of
Johann Bernoulli
Johann Bernoulli (also known as Jean in French or John in English; – 1 January 1748) was a Swiss people, Swiss mathematician and was one of the many prominent mathematicians in the Bernoulli family. He is known for his contributions to infin ...
(Birkhäuser 1988, 1992) and published a French translation of the geometry of
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer ( , ;; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528),Müller, Peter O. (1993) ''Substantiv-Derivation in Den Schriften Albrecht Dürers'', Walter de Gruyter. . sometimes spelled in English as Durer or Duerer, was a German painter, Old master prin ...
. With
Amy Dahan
Amy Dahan-Dalmédico is a French mathematician, historian of mathematics, and historian of the politics of climate change.
Education and career
Dahan earned a doctorate in mathematics in 1979 and taught mathematics at the University of Amiens un ...
, she wrote a popular French-language history of mathematics that was translated into English and German.
From 1995 to 2015 she was co-editor of the ' and co-editor of ''
Historia Mathematica
''Historia Mathematica: International Journal of History of Mathematics'' is an academic journal on the history of mathematics published by Elsevier. It was established by Kenneth O. May in 1971 as the free newsletter ''Notae de Historia Mathemat ...
''.
She deals with scientific journals in the 17th and 18th centuries, also from a scientific sociological point of view and with the aspect of the history of the specialization of mathematics journals, with perspective in the Renaissance in connection with geometry and optics, and the letter as a communication tool of mathematics in the 18th century.
Publications
*
** (English translation)
* Herausgeberin und Übersetzerin: Albrecht Dürer, Géométrie, Ed. du Seuil 1995 (also translated into Spanish)
* Faire des mathématiques par lettres, Revue d'histoire des mathématiques IV/1, 1998, pp. 143–157
*
* Constructing perspective in sixteenth-century Nuremberg, in: Mario Carpo, Frédérique Lemerle (publisher), Perspective, Projections & Design. Technologies of Architectural Representation, London & New York : Routledge, 2007, pp. 65–76
References
External links
Publications by Jeanne Peifferon CAIRN
{{DEFAULTSORT:Peiffer, Jeanne
1948 births
Living people
Historians of mathematics
Luxembourgian mathematicians
Academic staff of the University of Luxembourg
20th-century Luxembourgian historians
21st-century Luxembourgian historians
Luxembourgian women historians
21st-century Luxembourgian women writers
20th-century Luxembourgian women writers
Research directors of the French National Centre for Scientific Research