Routine Controversies : Mathematical Challenges in Mersenne's Correspondence

Abstract

Mathematical challenges punctuate the history of early modern mathematics. While cultural historians have attempted to contextualize these challenges among contemporary practices, in particular duels or advertisements in a competitive market, thus emphasizing their interpersonal and social dimensions, historians of mathematics have generally treated them as somewhat childish remnants of a pre-scientific age, that the advent of modern science and its Baconian ideal of efficient collaboration would soon bring to an end. However, the number of challenges did not decrease but rather multiplied inside one of the first scientific organizations aiming at cooperative work--Marin Mersenne's network. This paradox has suggested the focus of this article : to examine the role of challenges in the economy of mathematical exchange (and mathematical creation) in early modern France. Through examples of successful, but also of unsuccessful challenges, we shall see how challenges operated, not only as "mises en scène" of methodological oppositions, but also, and primarily, as links in a mathematical environment structured inside correspondences around the resolution of problems. This situation also exemplifies how controversies may have been a constitutive part of normal scientific activities--and not their disruption--while shaping their development in specific, limited directions.