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).