Jackie Stedall facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Jackie Stedall
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| Born |
Jacqueline Anne Stedall
4 August 1950 |
| Died | 27 September 2014 (aged 64) |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | Queen Mary's High School |
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| Occupation | Mathematics historian |
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Notable work
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The History of Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction (2012) |
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Jacqueline Anne "Jackie" Stedall (born August 4, 1950 – died September 27, 2014) was a British historian who studied the history of mathematics. She wrote many books and appeared on the radio show In Our Time on BBC Radio 4.
Contents
Jackie's Early Life and Education
Jackie Stedall was born in Romford, Essex, England. She went to Queen Mary's High School in Walsall. She loved learning and earned several degrees.
She got a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Girton College, Cambridge. Later, she earned a master's degree in statistics from the University of Kent. She also got a teaching certificate from Bristol Polytechnic (which is now the University of the West of England).
Jackie then earned her PhD (a very high degree) in the history of mathematics from the Open University. For her PhD, she studied a book from 1685 called Treatise of Algebra by John Wallis.
Jackie's Career in History
After finishing her master's degree, Jackie worked as a statistician at the University of Bristol for three years. She also worked for four years as an administrator for a charity called War on Want. After that, she spent eight years working as a teacher.
Jackie's career as a historian began in 2000. She became a student at The Queen's College, Oxford, where she focused on the history of science. She later became a fellow at the college. This meant she was a senior member of the academic staff. She also created a new course at the University of Oxford about the history of mathematics.
In 2002, Jackie became the managing editor of a newsletter for the British Society for the History of Mathematics. This newsletter later became a journal called the BSHM Bulletin. She worked with another mathematics historian named Eleanor Robson.
Jackie on the Radio
Jackie Stedall was a guest many times on the BBC Radio 4 show In Our Time. On the show, she talked about interesting math topics.
Some of the topics she discussed included:
- Archimedes, a famous ancient Greek mathematician.
- Who invented calculus, Isaac Newton or Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz?
- The Fibonacci sequence, a pattern of numbers found in nature.
- Prime numbers and how they are used in finance.
- Mathematics from the Renaissance period.
Jackie's Books
Jackie Stedall wrote many important books about the history of mathematics.
In 2008, she wrote a book called Mathematics Emerging. This book was used as the main textbook for her course at Oxford. She also helped edit and publish the Oxford Handbook of the History of Mathematics.
With Janet Beery, she co-edited another book called Thomas Harriot’s Doctrine of Triangular Numbers: the 'Magisteria Magna' in 2009.
In 2012, Jackie wrote The History of Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction. This book was part of a popular series by Oxford University Press. It explained what mathematics historians do and how they study the past. This book won the 2013 Neumann Prize. This prize is given to the best English-language book about the history of mathematics.
Jackie's Personal Life
Jackie Stedall was married and had two children.
She passed away on September 27, 2014. In her will, she gave money to the library at Queen's College. This money helps to protect and preserve old mathematics history books.
After her passing, people remembered her contributions. In 2015, the Canadian Society for History and Philosophy of Mathematics held a special meeting to honor her. In 2016, the British Society for the History of Mathematics held a two-day meeting at Queen's College. This meeting focused on algebra from the 1500s and 1600s, and it was dedicated to Jackie Stedall.
