I am a historian of mathematics and of science whose research focuses on conceptions of materiality and material practices between the 17th and the 21st century. On the one hand, I aim to understand the emergence of material epistemology: how human beings in different cultures and different periods have conceptualized the relations between artisanal and material practices – e.g. folding, weaving, braiding – and scientific, mathematical and symbolic knowledge.  On the other hand, I research historically and epistemologically how visual practices have been shaping mathematical knowledge in the 20th and 21st century: from three-dimensional material models and computer-generated images to AI-produced diagrams, such visual means change our notions of mathematical understanding, conjecturing, concept formation and intuition.

I am an associate researcher at the Bonn University. Before coming to Bonn, I held positions at the at the Cohn Institute For History And Philosophy of Science And Ideas at Tel Aviv University, at the Humboldt University, Berlin, at the Fourier Institute at Grenoble and at the Max Planck Institute for mathematics in Bonn. I was also a Senior Fellow (04/24−09/24) at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research. I was as well a visiting researcher at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv at Marbach during 2024 and at the Deutsches Museum in Munich during 2019.

* I am happy to announce that during 2027 I will be a NOMIS Fellow at eikones – Center for the Theory and History of the Image in Basel, Switzerland, with my project "The Second Crisis of Mathematical Visualization: From 1960s Computer-Generated Images to the 2020s Al-Generated Diagrams".

I am working currently on two projects. My first project: Crises of Mathematical Visualization, investigates the epistemological transformation of mathematical visual practices from 1960s computer graphics to contemporary AI-generated diagrams. I examine how digital technologies have fundamentally altered mathematical knowledge creation, particularly focusing on recent AI-based systems. These systems challenge traditional geometric reasoning by solving problems through formal language models rather than visual (human) intuition, producing geometric proofs that can only, if at all, be visualized retroactively. This project explores the evolving role of mathematicians and the changing nature of mathematical authority in an era where AI increasingly generates both imagery and mathematical knowledge itself.

The second project Towards Blumenberg’s Scientific Non-Conceptuality deals with Hans Blumenberg’s thought on metaphorology, non-conceptuality and his interactions with the philosophy of science and the history of mathematics. The project is based on the premise that such an association is to be found in Blumenberg’s reflections on science, technology and mathematics, beginning with an archival investigation and cooperating with the Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach. Aiming at a detailed examination of archive materials from Blumenberg’s archive on the subject, including his cards and unpublished materials, as well as his reading of various writings of philosophers and historians of science and mathematics, I aim to formulate a more nuanced account on Blumenberg’s philosophy of science and how it related to his metaphorology on the one hand to his view on non-conceptuality on the other hand. It is in this framework that my upcoming monograph Toward Mathematical Non-Conceptuality. Hans Blumenberg, Mathematics and the Failed Search for Linguistic Purity will be published in 2026.

Contact: contact ((at)) michaelfriedman.de

Various publications can be downloaded from: https://uni-bonn.academia.edu/MichaelFriedman