TY - Generic T1 - Dutch Algebra and Arithmetic in Japan before the Meiji Restoration Y1 - In Press A1 - Heeffer, Albrecht ED - Vandoulakis, I.M. ED - Dun, Liu AB -

This paper gives an overview of the scarce occasions in which Japan came into contact with Western arithmetic and algebra before the Meiji restoration of 1868. After the refutation of persistent claims on the influence through Japanese students at Leiden during the seventeenth century, it concentrates on the reception of Dutch works during the last decades of the Tokugawa shogunate and the motivations to study and translate these books. While some studies based on Japanese sources have already been published on this period,2 this paper draws from Dutch sources and in particular on witness accounts from Dutch officers at the Nagasaki naval school, responsible for the instruction of mathematics to selected samurai and rangakusha. Two Japanese textbooks on arithmetic from that period are viewed within the context of this naval training school.

JA - Navigating across Mathematical Cultures and Times: Exploring the Diversity of Discoveries and Proofs PB - World Scientific Publishing Co. ER - TY - Generic T1 - Data-driven induction in scientific discovery: a critical assessment based on Kepler's discoveries Y1 - 2014 A1 - Heeffer, Albrecht ED - Weber, Erik ED - Wouters, Dietlinde ED - Meheus, Joke AB -

Motivated by the renewed interest in knowledge discovery from data (KDD) by the artificial intelligence community, this paper provides a critical assessment of the model of data-driven induction for scientific discovery. The most influential research program using this model is developed by the BACON team. Two of the main claims by this research program, the descriptive and constructive power of data-driven induction, are evaluated by means of two historical cases studies: the discovery of the sine law of refraction in optics and Kepler’s third law of planetary motion. I will provide evidence that the data used by the BACON program–-despite the claims being made–-does not correspond with the historical data available to Kepler and his contemporaries. Secondly, it is shown that for the two cases the method by which the general law was arrived at did not involve data-driven induction. Finally, the value of the data-driven induction as a general model for scientific discovery is being questioned.

JA - Logic, reasoning, and rationality PB - Springer SP - 59–76 SN - 9789401790109 ER -