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There was definitely some of that before. Ben Franklin, in his autobiography, writes that his Junto, a group of people devoted to self-improvement, included:

There was definitely some of that before. Ben Franklin, in his autobiography, writes that his Junto, a group of people devoted to self-improvement, included: "Thomas Godfrey, a self-taught mathematician, great in his way, and afterward inventor of what is now called Hadley's Quadrant. But he knew little out of his way, and was not a pleasing companion; as, like most great mathematicians I have met with, he expected universal precision in everything said, or was forever denying or distinguishing upon trifles, to the disturbance of all conversation. He soon left us." (from Project Gutenberg's online version: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20203/20203-h/20203-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20203/20203-h/20203-h.htm; written ~1775? about events in ~1730)

constantcrying 2y ago
No doubt pedantic mathematicians had existed before, but what these examples did is actually convince mathematicians in general to be far more concerned about the subjects of mathematical foundations. E g. an actually consistent and encompassing definition of what a "function" is, is something surprisingly recent. Certainly Euler, Gauß, Leibnitz or Newton did not have one. Only with Cantor's project of set theory did we get something remotely satisfying. Cantor faced significant backlash, which surely would have been much more effective if there weren't examples where actual foundational questions became questions of practical mathematics. And whether Weierstrass had actually found a "function" was one of these questions.