The great Russian scientist is often attributed to the phrase about the benefits of mathematics for the development of the mind. We checked whether there are evidence that Lomonosov really pronounced it.
Each of us once studied at school. In most offices, the school board hung and still hang the motivating quotes of great people about the importance of the relevant sciences. One of the most common quotes is attributed to Lomonosov: "Then it is then necessary to teach mathematics that she puts the mind in order." We checked whether Lomonosov really spoke or wrote something like that.
When it comes to widely known quotes, you can usually trust the compilers of different referrals of winged expressions - the desired phrase there will almost certainly be there. We started a search with Books “Mathematics in aphorisms, quotes, statements” published in Kyiv in 1983 (compiler - Nina Afanasyevna Virchenko).
In this reference book, the phrase, of course, is, and its author is Lomonosov, and the source is also indicated: “Cit. by: 93, p. 246 ". But what is the source in this book at number 93? It turned out that this is not Lomonosov’s book, but popular book Soviet author Ivan Depman "History of Arithmetic", published in 1959.
We open this source:
Already a little surprising: Ivan Yakovlevich Depman, not being a professional archivist and historian of science, “opens” an unknown quote from a great Russian scientist in a popular book. If you compare this note with the era of the release of the book, it also becomes a little suspicious: too many discoveries were attributed to the “homeland of elephants”, from bicycle to a steam locomotive.
You can not be too lazy and open a little earlier book The same author “Tales of Mathematics” (1954). In it, this “previously slipped away” story is told a little more detailed.
So, if this is not a fiction, then there should be documentary traces:
- Lomonosov instructions write to the cadet corps curriculum in three scientific disciplines;
- these programs themselves (not to mention the explanatory note to them);
- Teaching on them for one or two generations (usually so much time in Russia of those times, textbooks and curricula were used, until the following were replaced by the following).
Is it necessary to clarify that none of this is not only in Lomonosov’s writings, but also in his many biographies? By 1752, he is a member of the Academy of Sciences, a professor of chemistry, enjoying the certain respect of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, but only a court adviser, an official of the VII class, and before his rising and the start of service in the office of the Academy of Sciences for another five years. This year, he is engaged in chemical experiments with mosaics, seeks the opening of a color glass factory, writes Odes and tragedies, gives lectures on chemistry to students ...
Here are just one reversal of the monograph “Chronicle of the life and work of M.V. Lomonosov”, published in 1961 by the Institute of History of Natural Science and Technology of the USSR Academy of Sciences:
Behind it, 14 more pages of the detailed “annals” do not contain any traces of the program of the cadet corps, which allegedly contained a phrase about mathematics, which then you need to teach, that ... and it seems that this is the end of the story. It remains to state that the Soviet popularizer of mathematics Ivan Depman came up with the phrase and put into Lomonosov’s mouth.
Incorrect attribution of quote
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