Symbols and Suggestions: The Communication
of Mathematics in Print
Jeremy Gray
Open University
Abstract
Mathematicians work with symbols and use them to communicate their work. I shall consider two historical examples that suggest how this relationship can evolve in complicated ways that spill over into general issues about the nature of mathematics and the nature of communication: first, the transition from ratio to equality and the related emergence of the function concept; second, notation in and around logic and set theory.