Around the turn of the 20th century, Prague gradually grew from a small provincial town to a multicultural crossroads of mathematical research. The two largely separate communities of Czech-speaking and German-speaking academics competed with each other for better conditions. Seasoned with elements of Czech, Russian (or, more broadly speaking, Slavic), German, French, and Jewish cultures created a specific milieu and attracted Albert Einstein, Wilhelm Blaschke, Georg Alexander Pick and many others. With the rise of Nazism in Germany after 1933, Prague became a temporary asylum for many refugees. Unfortunately, this asylum in the end trapped the scientist who hesitated to emigrate from the Czechoslovakia. After World War II, waves of revenge brought Prague back to the rank of provincial city.
The meeting traditionally strives to support interdisciplinary debate and explore various approaches to history of mathematics. This year, we would like to offer a platform for the discussion of the importance of cultural and personal ties for the development of mathematics and the sciences. We thus invite contributions dealing with these phenomena also outside the narrow, albeit extremely interesting, scope of interwar Czechoslovakia described above.
Keynote speakers:
Robert Marc Friedman (University of Oslo / Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore): Albert Einstein in Prague - what we do now know about his stay
Alena Míšková (Charles University, Prague): German University in Prague and German mathematicians in Czechoslovakia
Speakers and participants include: Doubravka Olšáková (Institute for Contemporary History ASCR, Prague), Helena Durnová, Karel Lepka (Masaryk University in Brno), Jan Kotůlek (VSB-Technical University of Ostrava).
Common departure of participants from Brno and Prague will be organised.
In the breaks after lunch, there are cross-country skiing and/or hiking trips planned. In the case of good snow conditions, please pack your skiing equipment. Alternatively, there is a ski rental in the near Nové Město na Moravě.
If you intend to participate, send a note by 15 December 2013 to
helena.durnova@mail.muni.cz
(preferably including the title and a short abstract of your talk).
Abstracts received by 5 January 2014 will be included to the pre-conference volume with recommended reading.