Geert Vanpaemel

KU Leuven | ku leuven · Research Unit for Cultural History since 1750

During the Laboratory Revolution of the late nineteenth century, the popular press was instrumental in disseminating an increasing number of visual representations of the laboratory, which contributed to the rising public authority of laboratory research. This chapter offers a typology of these images, based on a sample of pictures taken from the p...

The modern mathematics movement in Belgium is inextricably linked to Georges Papy, a flamboyant and uncompromising professor of algebra at the Free University of Brussels. From the late 1950s, Papy reshaped the content of secondary school mathematics by basing it upon the unifying themes of sets, relations, and algebraic structures. Meanwhile, he i...

The modern research university originated in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century, largely due to the creation and expansion of the teaching and research laboratory. The universities and the sciences underwent a laboratory revolution that fundamentally changed the nature of both. This revolutionary development began in chemistry, whe...

Le mouvement néothomiste à l’Université catholique de Louvain se concrétisa par l’érection d’un Institut supérieur de philosophie. Son créateur en était Désiré Mercier, le futur archevêque de Malines. Néanmoins, les débuts de l’Institut furent marqués par quelques controverses, notamment sur les relations entre science et religion. Mercier subit l’...

Vautrin (Guy), Histoire de la vulgarisation scientifique avant 1900. – Les Ulis : EDP Sciences, 2018. – 408 p. – (Sciences & Histoire). – 1 vol. broché de 16 × 24 cm. – 34,00 €. – isbn 978-2-7598-2246-1.

During the mid-1980s and the 1990s, the modern mathematics model was gradually adapted and finally abandoned. These developments no longer took place in a unitary Belgian context. By the end of the 1980s, Belgium had become a Federal State consisting of three Communities—the Flemish, the French, and the (small) German-speaking Community. Each becam...

In the early 1950s, Caleb Gattegno, who held doctorates in both mathematics and psychology, took the initiative to organize regular meetings of internationally renowned psychologists, mathematicians, and mathematics teachers, and the International Commission for the Study and Improvement of Mathematics Teaching (CIEAEM) was born. During the 1950s,...

In the aftermath of World War II, Belgian intellectuals participated in the Comité d’Initiative pour la Rénovation de l’Enseignement en Belgique. Their aim was to renew education for 6- to 16-year-olds in all disciplines. Main inspiration was found in the work of Ovide Decroly, a protagonist of Reform Pedagogy. This reform movement led to new curri...

The 1960s were characterized by a wide range of activities aimed at assisting the actual implementation of modern mathematics into the classroom: experimentation with different target groups, related to the development of new curricula, and large-scale programs of teacher re-education. After a first experiment, Georges Papy, a professor of algebra,...

The developments during the 1960s seem to suggest that within the Belgian mathematics education community, there was a kind consensus about the modernization efforts and the way they were led by Papy and his CBPM. The reality was however different: During the 1960s, a real anti-modern mathematics movement originated, the opposition being headed by...

In the late 1970s, a “reform of the reform” was launched in the French Community of Belgium, more modestly and receiving less media attention than the modern mathematics revolution of the 1960s. It was the time of a new generation of mathematics educators with Nicolas Rouche as a main figurehead. They pleaded, among other things, for students’ guid...

After a period of ten years of experimentation and confusion about the future direction of school mathematics, a political decision clarified the situation: From 1968 on, modern mathematics was compulsorily introduced in all Belgian secondary schools and a few years later also in primary schools. For more than 20 years, it was the dominant paradigm...

In 1959 the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC) organized a major international seminar on “New Thinking in School Mathematics” at the Cercle Culturel de Royaumont in Asnières-sur-Oise (France). The Royaumont Seminar soon acquired an almost iconic status among mathematics reformers and came to be seen as a decisive turning point...

In 1953, the Belgian Society of Mathematics Teachers was founded, ensuring a structural relation between the work of the CIEAEM and the community of Belgian mathematics teachers. The Society brought together a few hundred mathematics teachers from both linguistic communities (French and Dutch). It immediately started its own professional journal Ma...

In 1963 the Belgian mathematician and mathematics educator Georges Papy published the first volume of his groundbreaking textbook series entitled Mathématique Moderne (in collaboration with Frédérique Papy-Lenger), intended for students from 12 to 18 and based on several years of classroom experimentation. It marked a revolution in the teaching of...

For anyone interested in the history and effects of the introduction of so-called “Modern Mathematics” (or “Mathématique Moderne,” or “New Mathematics,” etc.) this book, by Dirk De Bock and Geert Vanpaemel, is essential reading. The two authors are experienced and highly qualified Belgian scholars and the book looks carefully at events relating to...

Esther van Gelder, Erik Jorink , Ilja Nieuwland, Marlise Rijks en Alice Spruit (red.), ‘Dingen die ergens toe dienen.’ Verhalen over materiële cultuur van wetenschap(Hilversum: Verloren, 2017), 192 pp., ill., ISBN 9789087046958. € 25. (Rolf ter Sluis)Galileo Galilei, Kijker, Kerk en Kosmos. Galileo Galilei’s ‘Bericht van de sterren’ en ‘Brief aan g...

During the early phases of the New Math reform, several series of classroom experiments were set up in Belgium by leading figures of the reform movement. Although there are no primary data documenting the experiments, some information did appear in scholarly publications. Moreover, the experiments were often referred to as powerful arguments in fav...

Van katholieke propaganda en maatschappelijk belang tot wetenschappelijk onderzoek. Horen de natuurwetenschappen thuis aan een universiteit? Van bij haar oprichting in 1817 heeft de Leuvense faculteit voor wetenschappen moeten strijden om haar bestaan te rechtvaardigen. Daarbij moest ze steeds opnieuw het juiste evenwicht vinden tussen katholieke p...

In the last decades of the nineteenth century, many European countries adopted a laboratory science system, in which the German model served as the prime example to be imitated. This is often taken as proof of the central role accorded to German science, and positions followers of the German model on the periphery. In this chapter another interpret...

In 1953 the Belgian Society of Mathematics Teachers was founded. The Societybrought together a few hundred mathematics teachers from both linguistic communities (French and Dutch). It started its own professional journal Mathematica & Paedagogia (M&P). Willy Servais, the Society’s first president, became the journal’s figurehead. Servais was an ope...

The position of Fromondus as a natural philosopher has often been analysed in the context of his opposition against Cartesianism and his infamous turnabout with respect to Copernicanism. Yet, during the seventeenth century, Fromondus was a widely respected philosopher, whose Meteorologicorum libri sex (1627) remained in print until 1670. We argue t...

‘Beginnen is de allereerste voorwaarde om iets te verwezenlijken’. Paul Bockstaele (1920–2009) en de academisering van de wetenschapsgeschiedenis in België

Versnippering of diversiteit? De Belgische wetenschapsgeschiedenis na de Tweede Wereldoorlog

During the first decade after the end of the War, the economic situation of the Belgian universities and scientific institutions had greatly deteriorated. Books and equipment had become more expensive, and official budgets had not been able to keep up with rising prices. A professor's salary was relatively small, and it was lamented that only few y...

During the 1960s many European countries introduced new mathematical school curricula, replacing the Euclidean, geometric approach with the teaching of algebraic topology, logic and set theory. The aims of this so-called New Math reform ranged from bringing school mathematics closer to the current scientific level of the field, to merely abolishing...

With regard to the public circulation of knowledge, universities are often regarded as privileged institutions where information and ideas are formally transmitted through regulated didactic experiences. University life, however, provided a more complex environment in which various parallel and perhaps contradictory processes of transmission were a...

Introduction to the special issue of Studium on networks and institutions on the Circulation of Knowledge.

The New Math reform which swept Europe in the 1960’s was primarily instigated by the Commission Internationale pour l’Étude et l’Amélioration de l’Enseignement des Mathématiques. Since its foundation in 1952 the CIEAEM held annual meetings where mathematicians, logicians and psychologists discussed the direction of the modernization process. Severa...

The wealth of American millionaires, the greed of Nazi art collectors and a positivist faith in the authority of laboratory science all contributed to the emergence of conservation science as a new discipline. Yet, not before the aftermath years of the Second World War was scientific expertise accepted as valid knowledge by both art critics and the...

Double Portrait: M.-F. van Langren, engineer and astronomer Michiel-Florent van Langren, royal cosmographer of the Spanish King in the Southern Netherlands, is best known for his publication of the first lunar map with a topographical nomenclature (1645). As an astronomer, he was well received in intellectual circles, as can be seen in his correspo...

In an effort to highlight the pivotal role of Kepler in the history of Western astronomy, Arthur Koestler once dubbed Copernicus's epoch-making DeRevolutionibus of 1543, the "book nobody read." The book was long time supposed to be too technical and too difficult ever to reach a wide audience. Even before the book was condemned by the Roman church...

Technology in Dutch societyTIN-20 takes the traditional history of technology one step further and transforms it into a contextual history of technical artefacts. In this way, technology (and the technical genius behind it) is reduced to little more than a plaything between social actors. The author argues that more attention should be given to the...

A reassessment of the Jesuit contributions to the emergence of the scientific worldview. Founded in 1540, the Society of Jesus was viewed for centuries as an impediment to the development of modern science. The Jesuit educational system was deemed conservative and antithetical to creative thought, while the Order and its members were blamed by Gali...

The 19th century was a crucial period in the development of modern science.1 New discoveries and ideas appeared one after the other to feed the bourgeoisie’s increasing appetite for knowledge. Museums put on proud displays of their latest prehistoric finds, from dinosaurs to Neanderthals. The chemical industry brought new dyes on to the market, and...