Bolzano’s work in mathematics and related topics

With the growing attention that Bernard Bolzano’s work in mathematics and related topics has received in recent decades, the publication of major translations into English and the completion of the Bernard Bolzano–Gesamtausgabe (BGA) drawing ever closer, the conference aims to open up a space that brings together all those who are interested in one way or another in such a work of Bolzano’s, particularly those who place it in context.

The conference will take place on the 21st and 22nd of September at the main building of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the Karolinum, in Prague.

Bolzano (1781–1848) is an unusual figure in the history of mathematics. By 1817 he had published original insights and contributions to fundamental properties of number, functions and geometric extensions. And by the the mid-1840s, in addition to publishing his Theory of Science and some essays on the mathematical method, the composition of forces and the three dimensions of space, he had further advanced a theory of collections, developed his theory of measurable numbers and constructed a function which turned to be the first known example of one that is everywhere continuous and nowhere differentiable.

However, his published works in mathematics and related topics only began to be recognised among the international community several decades later, while, with a notable exception, those he left unpublished or unfinished only began to come to light in the 20th century, first through the Spisy Bernarda Bolzana and, from 1969, through the monumental endeavour of the BGA.