Mathematical Practitioners and the Transformation of Natural Knowledge in Early Modern Europe

Introduction: Practical Mathematics, Practical Mathematicians, and the Case for Transforming the Study of Nature.- Part 1: Framing The Argument: Theories Of Connection.- Handwork and Brainwork: Beyond the Zilsel Thesis (Lesley B. Cormack).- Consuming and Appropriating Practical Mathematics and the Mixed Mathematical Fields, Or Being "Influenced" by Them: The Case of the Young Descartes (John Schuster).- Part 2: What Did Practical Mathematics Look Like?.- Mathematics for Sale: Mathematical Practitioners, Instrument-makers, and Communities of Scholars in Sixteenth-Century London (Lesley B. Cormack).- Technologies of  Pow(d)er: Military Mathematical Practitioners' Strategies and Self-Presentation (Steven A. Walton).- Machines as Mathematical Instruments (Alex G. Keller).- Part 3: What was the Relationship Between Practical Mathematics and Natural Philosophy?.- The Making of Practical Optics: Mathematical Practitioners' Appropriation of Optical Knowledge Between Theory and Practice (Sven Dupré).- Hero of Alexandria and Renaissance Mechanics (Roy Laird).- Duytsche Mathematique and the Building of a New Society: Pursuits of Mathematics in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republic (Fokko Jan Dijksterhuis).