This book reveals the French scientific contribution to the mathematical theory of nonlinear
oscillations and its development. The work offers a critical examination of sources with a
focus on the twentieth century especially the period between the wars. Readers will see that
contrary to what is often written France's role has been significant. Important contributions
were made through both the work of French scholars from within diverse disciplines
(mathematicians physicists engineers) and through the geographical crossroads that France
provided to scientific communication at the time. This study includes an examination of the
period before the First World War which is vital to understanding the work of the later period.
By examining literature sources such as periodicals on the topic of electricity from that era
the author has unearthed a very important text by Henri Poincaré dating from 1908. In this
work Poincaré applied the concept of limit cycle (which he had introduced in 1882 through his
own works) to study the stability of the oscillations of a device for radio engineering. The
discovery of this text means that the classical perspective of the historiography of this
mathematical theory must be modified. Credit was hitherto attributed to the Russian
mathematician Andronov from correspondence dating to 1929. In the newly discovered Poincaré
text there appears to be a strong interaction between science and technology or more precisely
between mathematical analysis and radio engineering. This feature is one of the main components
of the process of developing the theory of nonlinear oscillations. Indeed it is a feature of
many of the texts referred to in these chapters as they trace the significant developments to
which France contributed.Scholars in the fields of the history of mathematics and the history
of science and anyone with an interest in the philosophical underpinnings of science will find
this a particularly engaging account of scientific discovery and scholarly communication from
an era full of exciting developments.
