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CORVALLIS - Sabetai Unguru, a professor emeritus from the University of Tel-Aviv in Israel, will discuss the evolution of mathematics in a free public lecture at Oregon State University on Monday, Nov. 22.

His talk, "Counter-Revolutions in Mathematics," begins at 4 p.m. in Memorial Union 206.

The lecture is part of OSU's 2004-05 Horning Lecture Series, which is focusing on scientific revolutions.

In his talk, Unguru will compare Greek and modern mathematics, and make the case that progress in mathematics has been cumulative, not the product of revolutions. If there is a revolution in mathematics, he adds, it is the revolutionary change in the growth of mathematics.

Unguru is the former director of the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas at the University of Tel-Aviv. He also has been a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, a fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin, and a visiting professor of the University of Torino in Italy.

He has published six books on the history of mathematics and optics.