Graphs and lattices in the early versions of Ramon Llull's Art

Even though Ramon Llull (c. 1232–1316) made poor use of explicit mathematical formulations, since the times of G.W. Leibniz his Art of finding and demonstrating the truth has been considered an intellectual tool forerunning varied mathematical deployments, from combinatorics, to voting theory and even to computing sciences. This article shows how Llull used implicitly two mathematical formulations, graph theory and lattice theory, not known to have made their appearance before the 20th century: Ars demonstrativa (c.1283) displays some devices of graph theory and Liber principiorum medicinae (c.1274–1283) develops lattice theory in the context of the University of Montpellier.

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Publication Details

Journal
Historia Mathematica
Published
2025-03-01
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hm.2025.02.001
Citations
1
Primary Topic
Historical Studies of Medieval Iberia
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
8.27
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article

Graphs and lattices in the early versions of Ramon Llull's Art

Pep Mulet, Lola Badía, Anthony Bonner
1 citations
Historia Mathematica
Historical Studies of Medieval Iberia
8.27
article

Graphs and lattices in the early versions of Ramon Llull's Art

Pep Mulet, Lola Badía, Anthony Bonner
article en
1 citations

Abstract

Even though Ramon Llull (c. 1232–1316) made poor use of explicit mathematical formulations, since the times of G.W. Leibniz his Art of finding and demonstrating the truth has been considered an intellectual tool forerunning varied mathematical deployments, from combinatorics, to voting theory and even to computing sciences. This article shows how Llull used implicitly two mathematical formulations, graph theory and lattice theory, not known to have made their appearance before the 20th century: Ars demonstrativa (c.1283) displays some devices of graph theory and Liber principiorum medicinae (c.1274–1283) develops lattice theory in the context of the University of Montpellier.

Historia MathematicaVol. 70
Universitat Ramon Llull (ES)
Openalex Percentile: Top 5%
Historical Studies of Medieval Iberia
8.27
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