The great Russian scientist is often credited with a phrase about the benefits of mathematics for the development of the mind. We checked whether there is evidence that Lomonosov actually spoke it.
Each of us once went to school. In most classrooms, motivating quotes from great people about the importance of the relevant sciences hung and still hang above the blackboard. One of the most common quotes is attributed to Lomonosov: “Mathematics must be taught first because it puts the mind in order.” We checked whether Lomonosov actually said or wrote something like that.
When it comes to well-known quotes, you can usually trust the compilers of various reference books of catchphrases - the desired phrase will almost certainly be there. We started our search with books “Mathematics in aphorisms, quotes, statements”, published in Kyiv in 1983 (compiled by Nina Afanasyevna Virchenko).
In this reference book, of course, there is a phrase, and its author is listed as Lomonosov, and the source is also indicated: “cit. from: 93, p. 246". But what is the source in this book number 93? It turned out that this is not a book by Lomonosov, but a popular book Soviet author Ivan Depman’s “History of Arithmetic”, published in 1959.
Open this source:
It’s already a little surprising: Ivan Yakovlevich Depman, not being a professional archivist and historian of science, “discovers” a previously unknown quote from the great Russian scientist in a popular book. If we compare this note with the era of the book’s publication, it also becomes a little suspicious: too many discoveries were then attributed to the “homeland of elephants,” from the bicycle to the steam locomotive.
You can not be lazy and open a little earlier book by the same author, “Stories about Mathematics” (1954). In it, this “previously escaped” story is told in a little more detail.
So, if this is not fiction, then there should be documentary traces:
- instructions to Lomonosov to write training programs for the cadet corps in three scientific disciplines;
- these programs themselves (not to mention the explanatory note to them);
- teaching on them for one or two generations (usually this is how long textbooks and curriculums were used in Russia at that time until they were replaced by the next).
Is it necessary to clarify that none of this is found not only in Lomonosov’s works, but also in his numerous biographies? By 1752, he was a member of the Academy of Sciences, a professor of chemistry, enjoying a certain respect from Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, but only a court adviser, a VII class official, and there were still five whole years before he was promoted and began serving in the office of the Academy of Sciences. This year he is engaged in chemical experiments with mosaics, strives to open a colored glass factory, writes odes and tragedies, gives lectures on chemistry to students...
Here is just one spread of the monograph “Chronicle of the Life and Work of M. V. Lomonosov,” published in 1961 by the Institute of the History of Natural Science and Technology of the USSR Academy of Sciences:
Behind him, another 14 pages of the most detailed “Chronicle” do not contain any traces of the program of the cadet corps, which supposedly contained a phrase about mathematics, which then needs to be taught, that... And it seems that this is the end of the story. It remains to be stated that the phrase was invented and put into Lomonosov’s mouth by the Soviet popularizer of mathematics Ivan Depman.
Incorrect quote attribution
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