History of Mathematics Sources on the World Wide Web
THE NEW MEDIUM (1)
The New Medium
Hypertext
The most significant changes to affect society often seem in hindsight to be almost ridiculously simple; witness for example both the telephone and the printing press. Hypertext is likewise simple: it is a book with no binding. The pages are linked together, instead, by references to other pages at various places. The coloured links that you have been using to navigate through this site are examples, not only of the links themselves, but also of how intuitive the concept is. Virtually no one needs them to be explained; one simply sits down and starts to use them.
The educational impact of hypertext is to take control of the path of learning away from the author and into the hands of the learner. An effective use of hypertext does not require the reader to follow a linear path through the material, like one does in a book. Instead, the reader chooses what looks most interesting or enlightening and blazes his/her own trail. This makes authorship more difficult, as I can attest, but engages the learner more directly in the educational process.
The early part of this presentation has been fairly linear, to match (my preconceptions of) your expectations, but the remainder is not so structured. Feel free to wander through the topics that interest you, and to skip those of less interest. Or, you may choose to follow the structure outlined at left. Many links to off-campus sites will be found later; please explore those of interest, and occasionally return here to pick up the thread.