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How did the terms "center" and "centralizer" come up in group theory?
Usually the word center means the center of a circle. I have encountered the word center in group theory, but do not see any connection with the center of a circle. I think the history of group theory probably has something to do with it.
Can…
tarit goswami
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Why should February have 28 days?
According to the Gregorian calendar the second month i.e. February have 28 days and in a leap year 29 days.
I am not sure what calculations(science) it takes to decide the total number of days in each month. But my questions are,
Who was the first…
Amit Tyagi
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Riemann's moduli and Dedekind's modules: any connection?
The concept of a moduli space goes back to Riemann's count of $3g-3$ (or $3p-3$, in older notation) coordinates to describe Riemann surfaces of genus $g$ when $g > 1$. See the bottom of p. 33 here, where Riemann introduces the term Moduln and writes…
KCd
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Indiana Pi Bill: Other attempts to establish mathematical truth by legislative fiat?
Wiki:
The Indiana Pi Bill is the popular name for bill #246 of the 1897 sitting of the Indiana General Assembly, one of the most notorious attempts to establish mathematical truth by legislative fiat.
So, what are the other attempts?
Context: I'm…
BCLC
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Did Indian astronomers realize the sphericity of the earth independently of the Greeks?
Reading Wikipedia's articles on the flat earth, spherical earth, and history of geodesy makes it clear that virtually every society recognizing the spheroidal shape of the earth today owes the observation to the ancient Greeks. But one possible…
Mr. Bultitude
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What equation is Stephen Hawking most noted for?
I am trying to equate the famous Stephen Hawking to some of our other famous scientists and noted that the vast majority have an associated equation with their name. As for example Einstein was the famous E=mc2 and his stress tensor field equation…
Sedumjoy
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What caused or contributed to Euclid's Elements and Synthetic Geometry falling into disfavor?
Euclid's Elements could tout to have the longest and most famed publishing history of any book ever written. First written in 300 B.C., Euclid's Elements became the standard text from which aristocracy and the common people learned mathematics well…
user6918
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1 answer
Discovery of magnetic field reversals?
Inspired by the question Discovery of Earth's magnetic field, the article from New Zealand's webpage Discovery of the Earth’s magnetic field, also states that
The earth's dynamo is unstable, as is shown by magnetic reversals, when the polarity of…
user22
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Why was the Vienna Circle so important?
As far as I know the Vienna Circle was very relevant to science in the twentieth century. Why? What was the importance of the members' philosophy in science? Would science be too different from what it is today if it weren't for them? (I know these…
hjhjhj57
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When were mathematical conjectures first formulated and communicated?
Today it is common for mathematicians to formulate conjectures and publish/communicate them as a spur toward further research.
An example is Goldbach's conjecture, posed in a letter
from Goldbach to Euler in 1742.
Another is the Collatz conjecture,…
Joseph O'Rourke
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Interpretation of $W$ in Boltzmann's entropy formula
Background
In the famous Boltzmann's entropy formula, carved in the physicist's tombstone, a mysterious quantity $W$ appears (a):
$$S=k_B \log W\label{1}\tag{1}$$
We often hear that $W$ represents "the number of microstates corresponding to the…
valerio
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Invalid mathematical proof that was considered valid for the longest period of time?
Sometimes, mathematical proofs accepted in the scientific community are found to be wrong.
What is the disproved proof that was believed to be correct for the longest period of time?
clarification: Note that I'm asking only about proofs where the…
user6769
10
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1 answer
History of Galois Theory after Galois
Galois theory occupies a rather central place in modern number theory, from class field theory, to the Langlands program, to the ideas found in Grothendieck's Esquisse d'un Programme. But the Wikipedia article on Galois theory says that the…
Anton Hilado
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Philosophy behind category theory
Category theory represented a huge change in the way the community thought about mathematics, leaving its the set theoretic nature behind and bringing up the importance of arrows between the objects rather than the objects themselves.
I believe this…
hjhjhj57
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Request for good resources on 'history of infinity' topics
I'm writing/starting with my bachelor thesis, the subject is about "infinity": what it is, why do we accept it, etc., but most of all my goal is to give an overview of the history of the interpretation from mathematicians (or maybe philosophic…
Applied mathematician
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