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Steve Russ

Currently ...

After retiring from the Department, as Associate Professor, in 2012, I am now an Honorary Research Fellow. My main ongoing involvement with the Department was in being part of the Warwick team (co-ordinated by Mike Joy) working on the Erasmus+ CONSTRUIT! Project (2014 - 2017). For further details of the Project or the CONSTRUIT 2017 Conference follow the nearby links. In 2017 I published two historical articles in the IMA journal Mathematics TODAY (which, for copyright reasons, does not publish online). Among further Bolzano works I co-edited a volume (Band I/1) of the Bolzano-Gesamtausgabe (in fact the 105th in that edition ... see 'Bolzano in Prague' link). In 2021 I came back to being a student! - for an MA (by research) in the History Department for 2021-22. This consists mainly of a dissertation on a theme related to the historical contextualisation of contributions to the exact sciences in eighteenth century Bohemia - with special reference to Bernard Bolzano. I've been awarded a (funded) Visiting Fellowship at the Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Science, in Prague from February - March 2022.

Research Interests and Activities

I continue to work on the principles and methods of Empirical Modelling (through the CONSTRUIT! Project and in other ways). I also have long-standing interests in the history and philosophy of science.

The history of mathematics has been a particular interest - especially the work of Bernard Bolzano and his contemporaries. For many years I worked on the Council of the British Society for the History of Mathematics and was their President in the mid-1990s. I have regularly helped to organise Bolzano conferences in Prague and help to maintain a website on these and related topics - see link on the side panel.

Selected Publications

Steve Russ and Edgar Morscher (eds.), (Dec. 2019) Bernard Bolzano, Mathematische Schriften 1804-1810, Band I/1 of the Bernard Bolzano-Gesamtausgabe, Frommann-Holzboog Verlag, Stuttgart, 187pp. See https://www.frommann-holzboog.de/sites/fh/files/public/downloads/leseprobe_bolzano_mathematische-schriften.pdf

Steve Russ (2017) 'Mathematical Visionary: Bolzano in Bohemia'. Mathematics TODAY, 53 (6), 278 - 281.

Steve Russ (2017) 'Marvellous Merchiston: Napier the mathematician'. Mathematics TODAY, 53 (2), 71 - 74.

Steve Russ and Kateřina Trlifajová (2016) 'Bolzano's measurable numbers : are they real?' in Maria Zack, Elaine Landry eds. Research in History and Philosophy of Mathematics, The CSHPM 2015 Annual Meeting in Washington D.C., Birkhäuser pp. 39 - 56 See http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319432694

Steve Russ (2011) 'The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences' Guest Editorial for a Special Issue, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 36 (3), 209 - 213

Meurig Beynon and Steve Russ (2008) ‘Experimenting with Computing’. Journal of Applied Logic 6, 476-489

W.M.Beynon, R.C.Boyatt and S.B.Russ (2006) ‘Rethinking Programming’. In Proceedings IEEE Third International Conference on Information Technology: New Generations (ITNG 2006), April 10-12, 2006, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

Meurig Beynon, Steve Russ and Willard McCarty (2006) ‘Human Computing: Modelling with Meaning’. Literary and Linguistic Computing 21(2), 141-157

Steve Russ (2004) The Mathematical Works of Bernard Bolzano Oxford University Press, 728pp. Reprinted 2006. [Translations of some major works by Bolzano with commentaries]

M. Beynon, S. Rasmequan, S. Russ, (2002) 'A New Paradigm for Computer-based Decision Support ' (2002) Journal of Decision Support Systems, Special Issue on ‘New Directions in Decision Support Systems’, 33, 127-142

In the past ...

Before coming to Warwick I taught mathematics in schools for several years, being Head of Department in both private and State sectors. I joined Computer Science at Warwick in September 1985 and retired officially as an Associate Professor in August 2012. While in post I taught a wide variety of modules and contributed in many ways to administration and admissions. Six higher degree theses were successfully completed under my supervision: four for the degree of PhD, and two for the degree of MSc by research. Some of these theses are downloadable from the Empirical Modelling web pages. I acted as an advisor and co-examiner for many other theses.