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Mathematics and/as Humanities–Linking Humanistic Historical to Quantitative Approaches

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The Mathematics of Urban Morphology

Abstract

The article reflects the state of mathematics between the natural sciences and the humanities. By arguing that mathematics is a humanities subject, it suggests a close connection between mathematics and urban morphology studies. This also applies to the discrepancy between quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches. New types of research based on quantitative methods reveal previously unknown aspects of urban phenomena. They will play an increasingly important role in future research, and it is a challenge for the humanities to effectively integrate mathematical perspectives on the human habitat.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Hasse, Helmut. “Mathematik als Geisteswissenschaft und Denkmittel der exakten Naturwissenschaften”. Newly edited by Gabriele Dörflinger. Heidelberg: Universitätsbibliothek, 2008, p 3. URL: http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/12976/1/StudGen.pdf [access: 13 March 2018].

  2. 2.

    Kanitschneider, Bernulf. Kleine Philosophie der Mathematik. Stuttgart: Hirzel, 2017.

  3. 3.

    Leon Battista Alberti, Sebastiano Serlio, Andrea Palladio, Leonhard Christoph Sturm and Claude Perrault are but a few famous writers that refined and established the classical order.

  4. 4.

    E.g.,: The Political Meaning of Informal Urbanisation (Roberto Rocco, Jan van Ballegooijen| TU Delft), Eine Architekturgeschichte der Armut (Britta Hentschel| ETH Zürich).

  5. 5.

    Boeing, Geoff. “Measuring the Complexity of Urban Form and Design”, 2017, http://geoffboeing.com/publications/measuring-complexity-urban-form/ [access: 19 March 2018].

  6. 6.

    Moosavi, Vahid. “Urban morphology meets deep learning: Exploring urban forms in one million cities, town and villages across the planet”, 2017, https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.02939 [access: 20 March 2018].

  7. 7.

    COMPOSITO - Arthistorical Analysis of Architecture via Computer Vision is a project conducted by Björn Ommer, Peter Bell and Michael Arnold at the Heidelberg Collaboratory for Image Processing.

  8. 8.

    ArchiMediaL is a cooperation between historians of architecture and urban form (Carola Hein, Beate Loeffler, Tino Mager, Dirk Schubert) and computer scientists (Victor de Boer, Jan van Gemert, Seyran Khademi, Ronald Siebes). URL: http://archimedial.eu.

  9. 9.

    The historical images are from the collection of Stadsarchief Amsterdam and available at Beeldbank Amsterdam. URL: http://beeldbank.amsterdam.nl.

  10. 10.

    E.g. Hein, Carola: Port Cities: Dynamic Landscapes and Global Networks. London: Routledge 2011.

  11. 11.

    Löffler, Beate; Carola Hein; Tino Mager. “Searching for Meiji-Tōkyō. Heterogeneous visual media in times of global urban history, digitalization, and deep learning”. In: Global Urban History, 20 March 2018. URL: https://globalurbanhistory.com/2018/03/20/searching-for-meiji-tokyo-heterogeneous-visual-media-and-the-turn-to-global-urban-history-digitalization-and-deep-learning/ [access: 21 March 2018].

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Correspondence to Tino Mager .

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Mager, T., Hein, C. (2019). Mathematics and/as Humanities–Linking Humanistic Historical to Quantitative Approaches. In: D'Acci, L. (eds) The Mathematics of Urban Morphology. Modeling and Simulation in Science, Engineering and Technology. Birkhäuser, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12381-9_27

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