From: dlaibman@JJAY.CUNY.EDU
Date: Tue Mar 21 2006 - 08:42:39 EST
For Paul Bullock (and everyone else, of course!) These references are rather old, but they may still be useful. Dirk Struik, a Marxist, mathematician at MIT, and *Science & Society* founding editor, wrote two articles in *Science & Society*: "Concerning Mathematics," Vol. 1 (1936), beginning p. 81; "Marx and Mathematics," Vol. 12 (1948), beginning p. 181. (Information from an old index, which does not give too many details. Unfortunately, *Science &s Society* has lost its office space at John Jay College, and our back files are all in storage, so I can't look at actual copies of these issues.) All best, David David Laibman, Editor, S&S My recall is that he was working on providing a foundation for the calculus but it is questionably whether his results have any advantages over the work of Cauchy. -----Original Message----- From: OPE-L [mailto:OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU] On Behalf Of Paul Bullock Sent: 19 March 2006 21:19 To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: [OPE-L] Marxian trivia question Which independent discovery did marx make in mathematics. 1000 pages of notes were left, published in the USSR in Russian, and a selection was once pub'd in English by ( I think New Park Pubs in London). But if anyone can give me refs to any articles that actually look at this work I should be grateful. Paul Bullock ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jerry Levy" <Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM> To: <OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU> Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 12:30 PM Subject: Re: [OPE-L] Marxian trivia question > [Tuesday, March 14 marked the 123rd anniversary of the death > of Karl Marx. In the year 2117 the world will remember Marx > on the occasion of the 234th anniversary.] > > A: It will be 111 years before the anniversary of Marx's death > once again will numerically be in an exactly ascending sequence. > > In solidarity, Jerry > > > Frederick Engels' Speech at the Grave of Karl Marx > Highgate Cemetery, London. March 17, 1883 > On the 14th of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the > greatest living thinker ceased to think. He had been left alone for > scarcely two minutes, and when we came back we found him in his > armchair, peacefully gone to sleep -- but for ever. > An immeasurable loss has been sustained both by the militant > proletariat of Europe and America, and by historical science, in the > death of this man. The gap that has been left by the departure of > this mighty spirit will soon enough make itself felt. > Just as Darwin discovered the law of development or organic nature, > so Marx discovered the law of development of human history: the > simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that > mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, > before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.; that > therefore the production of the immediate material means, and > consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given > people or during a given epoch, form the foundation upon which the > state institutions, the legal conceptions, art, and even the ideas > on religion, of the people concerned have been evolved, and in the > light of which they must, therefore, be explained, instead of vice > versa, as had hitherto been the case. > But that is not all. Marx also discovered the special law of motion > governing the present-day capitalist mode of production, and the > bourgeois society that this mode of production has created. The > discovery of surplus value suddenly threw light on the problem, in > trying to solve which all previous investigations, of both bourgeois > economists and socialist critics, had been groping in the dark. > Two such discoveries would be enough for one lifetime. Happy the man > to whom it is granted to make even one such discovery. But in every > single field which Marx investigated -- and he investigated very > many fields, none of them superficially -- in every field, even in > that of mathematics, he made independent discoveries. > Such was the man of science. But this was not even half the man. > Science was for Marx a historically dynamic, revolutionary force. > However great the joy with which he welcomed a new discovery in some > theoretical science whose practical application perhaps it was as > yet quite impossible to envisage, he experienced quite another kind > of joy when the discovery involved immediate revolutionary changes > in industry, and in historical development in general. For example, > he followed closely the development of the discoveries made in the > field of electricity and recently those of Marcel Deprez. > For Marx was before all else a revolutionist. His real mission in > life was to contribute, in one way or another, to the overthrow of > capitalist society and of the state institutions which it had > brought into being, to contribute to the liberation of the modern > proletariat, which he was the first to make conscious of its own > position and its needs, conscious of the conditions of its > emancipation. Fighting was his element. And he fought with a > passion, a tenacity and a success such as few could rival. His work > on the first Rheinische Zeitung (1842), the Paris Vorwarts (1844), > the Deutsche Brusseler Zeitung (1847), the Neue Rheinische Zeitung > (1848-49), the New York Tribune (1852-61), and, in addition to > these, a host of militant pamphlets, work in organisations in Paris, > Brussels and London, and finally, crowning all, the formation of the > great International Working Men's Association -- this was indeed an > achievement of which its founder might well have been proud even if > he had done nothing else. > And, consequently, Marx was the best hated and most calumniated man > of his time. Governments, both absolutist and republican, deported > him from their territories. Bourgeois, whether conservative or ultra- > democratic, vied with one another in heaping slanders upon him. All > this he brushed aside as though it were a cobweb, ignoring it, > answering only when extreme necessity compelled him. And he died > beloved, revered and mourned by millions of revolutionary fellow > workers -- from the mines of Siberia to California, in all parts of > Europe and America -- and I make bold to say that, though he may > have had many opponents, he had hardly one personal enemy. > His name will endure through the ages, and so also will his work. > >
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