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From Gauß to Weierstraß: Determinant theory and its historical evaluations. (English) Zbl 0817.01008

Chikara, Sasaki (ed.) et al., The intersection of history and mathematics. Papers presented at the history of mathematics symposium, held in Tokyo, Japan, August 31 - September 1, 1990. Basel: Birkhäuser. Sci. Networks, Hist. Stud. 15, 51-66 (1994).
The 19th century saw more than 2000 publications dealing with determinants. The most important authors are: Gauss (approach through number theory, coining the name ‘determinants’ – of forms -, but not in the modern sense of the word, and without connexions to his later celestial mechanics); Cauchy, and also Binet to some extent (alternating symmetric functions, multiplication theorem, systematization, terminology); Jacobi (algorithmic approach, functional determinants); and, in lectures held at Berlin over several decades as published in 1903, Weierstrass and Kronecker (axiomatic approach). Useful bibliography, also on earlier work.
For the entire collection see [Zbl 0809.00012].

MSC:

01A55 History of mathematics in the 19th century
15-03 History of linear algebra

Biographic References:

Gauss, C. F.; Weierstrass, K.
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