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Mathematical Treasure: Charlotte Angas Scott's Analytical Geometry Textbook

Author(s): 
Frank J. Swetz (The Pennsylvania State University)

Charlotte Angas Scott (1858–1931) was a British mathematician who made her career in the United States. She was one of the first women to obtain a high score in the Cambridge Tripos mathematics examination, and she remained a pioneer in women’s education by serving as one of the first professors at Bryn Mawr College. Her field of mathematical research focused on higher-degree algebraic geometry. In 1894 she published An Introductory Account of Certain Modern Ideas and Methods in Plane Analytical Geometry.

Title page of Charlotte Scott's 1884 An Introductory Account of Certain Modern Ideas And Concepts of Plane Analytic Geometry.

In Chapter IV, Scott discusses the principle of duality:

Page 51 of Charlotte Scott's 1884 An Introductory Account of Certain Modern Ideas And Concepts of Plane Analytic Geometry.

Page 52 of Charlotte Scott's 1884 An Introductory Account of Certain Modern Ideas And Concepts of Plane Analytic Geometry.

Chapter X considers projections as linear transformations. This concept reflects Felix Klein’s theories on geometry.

Page 189 of Charlotte Scott's 1884 An Introductory Account of Certain Modern Ideas And Concepts of Plane Analytic Geometry.

Page 190 of Charlotte Scott's 1884 An Introductory Account of Certain Modern Ideas And Concepts of Plane Analytic Geometry.

Page 191 of Charlotte Scott's 1884 An Introductory Account of Certain Modern Ideas And Concepts of Plane Analytic Geometry.

The images above were obtained from the Internet Archive’s digitization of the copy owned by the University of Toronto Library.

Index to Mathematical Treasures

Frank J. Swetz (The Pennsylvania State University), "Mathematical Treasure: Charlotte Angas Scott's Analytical Geometry Textbook," Convergence (April 2021)