Sciences, Philosophie, Histoire – UMR 7219, laboratoire SPHERE

En 1989, l’ICHM a décerné, pour la première fois, le prix et la médaille Kenneth O. May en histoire des mathématiques. Ce prix honore la mémoire de Kenneth O. May, mathématicien et historien des mathématiques, qui a joué un rôle déterminant dans la création d’une communauté internationale unifiée d’historiens des mathématiques grâce à ses efforts inlassables pour fonder en 1971 l’ICHM et en 1974 la revue de l’ICHM, Historia Mathematica.

Le prix est décerné tous les quatre ans à l’historien ou aux historiens des mathématiques dont les travaux illustrent le mieux les normes universitaires élevées et les contributions intellectuelles dans ce domaine. En 2021, le prix a été remis à Christine Proust et Sonja Brentjes.

Ces distinctions mettent à l’honneur les mathématiques qui furent écrites au Proche Orient et dans le Bassin Méditerranéen en arabe, en sumérien et en akkadien. Elles portent à trois le nombre total de lauréates depuis la création du prix May, contre quatorze lauréats.

Texte lu lors de la remise du prix et de la médaille à Christine Proust :

"Christine Proust is professor emeritus and senior researcher at the SPHere laboratory, CNRS, and Université de Paris.

Proust’s work on calculation techniques, such as her work on a Mesopotamian abacus, elucidated basic mathematical practice and enables us to understand this mathematical culture as distinct from our own. Her work on mathematics at Old Babylonian Nippur changed how we view Babylonian mathematics, affording a better understanding of how numbers, metrology, and calculation were learned and exploited in this distant and unique mathematical culture. Her research on numbers and metrology, produced a more transparent methodology than seen previously, which in turn fosters greater access to Babylonian mathematics by both Assyriologists and by historians of mathematics. Her work on scholars and scholarship in the Mesopotamian city of Uruk, helps us understand how knowledge was produced, circulated, and preserved within an ancient society. Finally, her research into historiography helps us better understand the impact and shortcomings of past research into the history of mathematics.

Proust has developed numerous partnerships to promote research into the history of Babylonian mathematics. She has collaborated to produce new tools to research Babylonian mathematics, and worked closely with researchers from all over the world going beyond her own academic environments to support less experienced researchers and researchers from outside her own academic community. Since the 2000’s Proust has worked with the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative to provide open-access images and editions of cuneiform texts and in the process has pioneered how numbers and metrological systems can be digitalized.

As a teacher, Proust has and will have a lasting impact on both Assyriology and the history of mathematics. She has taken students in ancient geometry, ancient algebra, historiography, education, and much more. She has for years now presided over a group interested in the history of mathematics from all across the globe –from Brazil to Germany, the US to the UK –that meets regularly in person and online to better understand Babylonian mathematics and exchange ideas on this subject."