Glen Van Brummelen

Glen Robert Van Brummelen (born 1965) is a Canadian historian of mathematics specializing in historical applications of mathematics to astronomy. In his words, he is the “best trigonometry historian, and the worst trigonometry historian” (as he is the only one).

Glen Van Brummelen
Photo of Glen showing off a gift from one of his students.
Born1965  (age 56)
OccupationMathematician, dean 
Employer

He is president of the Canadian Society for History and Philosophy of Mathematics,[1] and was a co-editor of Mathematics and the Historian's Craft: The Kenneth O. May Lectures (Springer, 2005).

Life

Van Brummelen earned his PhD degree from Simon Fraser University in 1993,[2] and served as a professor of mathematics at Bennington College from 1999 to 2006. He then transferred to Quest University Canada as a founding faculty member. In 2020, he became the dean of the Faculty of Natural and Applied Sciences at Trinity Western University in Langley, BC.[3]

Glen Van Brummelen has published the first major history in English of the origins and early development of trigonometry, The Mathematics of the Heavens and the Earth: The Early History of Trigonometry.[4] His second book, Heavenly Mathematics: The Forgotten Art of Spherical Trigonometry, concerns spherical trigonometry.[5][6]

He teaches courses on the history of mathematics and trigonometry at MathPath, specifically Heavenly Mathematics and Spherical Trigonometry. He is also well known for the glensheep (as well as to a lesser extent the glenelephant, and to even lesser extent the glenturtle), a two-dimensional animal he coined at MathPath.

Works
  • The Mathematics of the Heavens and the Earth: The Early History of Trigonometry Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2009. ISBN 9780691129730, OCLC 750691811
  • Heavenly Mathematics: The Forgotten Art of Spherical Trigonometry Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2013. ISBN 9780691175997, OCLC 988234342

References
  1. CSHPM Council, retrieved 2013-12-26.
  2. Glen Van Brummelen at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  3. "Trinity Western University Welcomes New Dean of the Faculty of Natural and Applied Sciences". Trinity Western University. 29 May 2020. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  4. McRae, Alan S. (2009), Review of The Mathematics of the Heavens and the Earth, MR2473955.
  5. Steele, John M. (July 2013), "A forgotten discipline (review of Heavenly Mathematics)", Metascience, doi:10.1007/s11016-013-9836-9
  6. Funk, Martin (2013), Review of Heavenly Mathematics, MR3012466.


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