Most Popular
1500 questions
11
votes
1 answer
How did Sedgwick explain the succession of species?
Adam Sedgwick was a master structural geologist and was one of the primary participants in the early days of stratigraphy - working out how rocks could be distinguished, extrapolated, etc.
Although he did not consider himself a biostratigraphic…
winwaed
- 2,068
- 14
- 39
11
votes
1 answer
What's that on Euler's head? Does the head covering shown in Emanuel Handmann 1753 painting signify scholarship?
This may be borderline off-topic but this is the only place that I can think of ask this particular question.
I've always seen images of Leonhard Euler with a "hat" or head covering that is unfamiliar to me.
Is there a name for the head covering…
uhoh
- 2,163
- 16
- 31
11
votes
17 answers
Examples of papers co-authored by parent/child, or siblings
I hope this question is not inappropriate for this site; I found hsm.stackexchange better suited for it than MathOverflow or math.stackexchange. The motivation for it is just curiosity.
Question: Which mathematical papers have been co-authored by…
Torsten Schoeneberg
- 971
- 5
- 16
11
votes
3 answers
How did Eratosthenes determine that Alexandria and Syene were on the same meridian?
As discussed over here, Eratosthenes measured the earth’s circumference by comparing shadows cast at apparent noon at two locations separated by a known distance.
Although accounts of the event (like the one cited above, and this one, and this one)…
Chaim
- 309
- 1
- 6
11
votes
3 answers
What are some of the earliest mentions of scientific "cranks"?
Often professors in math and physics academia have inboxes full of people claiming to have solved deep problems such as dark matter, black holes, prime number conjectures and claim that many big names were actually wrong. Most of these "cranks"…
mather
- 143
- 4
11
votes
1 answer
What new physics was discovered or needed as a result of the Manhattan Project?
I originally asked this question on the Physics StackExchange and was told to migrate it here. I've tightened up the question a bit.
I recently got into a discussion with colleagues regarding quantum mechanics and the Manhattan Project. My…
irritable_phd_syndrome
- 211
- 1
- 3
11
votes
1 answer
Why is differentiation under the integral sign named the Leibniz rule?
The question here asked why differentiation under the integral sign is named "Feynman's trick". That is a comparatively recent name for the method. Aside from the name "differentiation under the integral sign" for this technique, it is also called…
KCd
- 5,517
- 19
- 31
11
votes
2 answers
How did Romans do multiplications?
The Romans did not have Indian numerals. Worse still, they did not have the decimal system. Yet, they produced amazing works of engineering and architecture. How was that possible? It's troublesome to make simple sums, but how could they make…
user157860
- 703
- 3
- 11
11
votes
1 answer
When and why did $\frac{dy}{dx}$ become $\frac{d}{dx}y$?
It's obvious for us, that $\frac{dy}{dx}$ can also be written as $\frac{d}{dx}y$, but skimming through Leibniz or Eulers writings I couldn't see them write the latter. I speculate that this change happened out of laziness, when the expression for…
Michael Bächtold
- 1,775
- 14
- 24
11
votes
2 answers
When did the concept of temperature first arise?
I am interested in when the concept of temperature first arose. This seems surprisingly hard to pin down from the web-based research I've done so far. I am mostly interested in how people thought about the concept (or its precursors) prior to the…
N. Virgo
- 314
- 1
- 9
11
votes
1 answer
Who came up with the "proof" that all triangles are isosceles?
"All triangles are isosceles" is a famous geometric fallacy (see below). Unlike many other fallacies its flaw is subtle and hard to spot, so it is often used as a cautionary example against the "danger in diagrams", e.g. in Greenberg's text, but…
Conifold
- 75,870
- 5
- 181
- 284
11
votes
5 answers
Mathematics PhD dissertations that opened a new field of research
I propose this as a companion wiki page to the one about PhD dissertations which contain a solution to an open problem in the style of big-list questions, thinking in terms of the well-known paradigm that splits mathematical research into problem…
Bence Mélykúti
- 601
- 1
- 5
- 14
11
votes
3 answers
$\frac{dy}{dx}$ versus $\frac{{\mathrm d}y}{{\mathrm d}x}$
When I first learned calculus a few decades ago, the books I read used italicized letter "d"s in derivatives (like this: $\frac{dy}{dx}$). But a few years ago, I started seeing upright "d"s (like this: $\frac{{\mathrm d}y}{{\mathrm d}x}$). When…
JRN
- 836
- 1
- 6
- 23
11
votes
6 answers
Why was modern science and mathematics a European phenomenon?
Of course much of this can be debated on what you mean by the word “modern”
But most of us would agree that the Arabic World and places like India were the leading mathematical and scientific civilizations way beyond Europe for centuries, all…
user4281
- 615
- 4
- 10
11
votes
1 answer
What is the historical reasoning for electron orbital names?
Electron orbitals are referred to as s, p, d and f. I have read that there was a Latinate basis for this, but never found anything more specific. (Obviously, the discovery of electron orbitals by Bohr et. al. post-dated the fall of the Roman Empire…
Ellie Kesselman
- 807
- 6
- 19