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Was the phlogiston theory ahead of its time?
I've always "known" that the phlogiston theory was naive and unsupported by the facts, which is why it was toppled pretty much instantaneously by Lavoisier's discovery of the role of oxygen. However, this article makes a case that this point of view…
AnatolyVorobey
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Where did the naming structure of particles come from (suffix -on)?
I was looking at a list of particles, and I noticed that many of them ended in -on. Proton, electron, neutron, lepton, etc. Is there a historical (or linguistic) reason behind this naming structure?
galois
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How come we attribute the general theory of relativity to Einstein?
How come do we attribute general theory of relativity to Einstein when David Hilbert published first?
superAnnoyingUser
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Why didn't Einstein win a second Nobel Prize, for relativity?
Einstein's failure to win a Nobel until 1921, and that prize's not being awarded for his work on relativity, is generally ascribed to these factors:
Lack of sufficient experimental proof for the theories at the time (some distrust in the early…
kdog
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What's the origin of the concept of the five senses?
It is commonly said (to children) that we have five senses: taste, sight, touch, smell, and hearing. The term "sixth sense" refers to something supernatural. But we do have more senses. Balance, for example, is as tangible as the other senses. More…
LocalFluff
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What is the first usage of the term "Adjoint" and why was this word chosen?
The term "Adjoint" appears in many different mathematical areas and for sometimes seemingly different kinds of things. Wikipedia says -- "In mathematics, the term adjoint applies in several situations. Several of these share a similar formalism: …
K7PEH
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Old square bracket notation for units
As discussed in this answer https://physics.stackexchange.com/a/77691/667 there are several common conventions for the notation $[q]$ of a physical quantity $q$.
However, I often see people to put the square brackets around the (SI-) unit itself.…
student
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How much did John Nash contribute to proving the Riemann hypothesis?
At quite the end of the movie A Beautiful Mind, John Nash tells a student "I am making progress" (towards proving the Riemann hypothesis (RH)). Actually, how much did Nash contribute to the proof of the RH?
Mockingbird
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Are there historical examples of thought experiments in biology and chemistry?
Thought experiments, imaginary situations designed to ponder conclusions of a theory, have been used throughout history. There is even a Stanford encyclopedia article about them. But the famous ones that come to mind are either from physics…
Conifold
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How much does Mathematics change in a generation?
I had an interesting thought where I wondered that if I had a grandparent who had been a mathematician (or at least studied mathematics), how much of modern undergraduate mathematics would they understand?
I think in other sciences this gap would be…
user5140
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Why are there no known Roman mathematicans from the Roman Empire?
I know that Roman Empire built some of the most beautiful things for the epoch and also had an incredible culture (law, poetry, ...).
However, my question is: Why there are there no known Roman mathematicans from the Roman Empire? All the famous…
Jose Javier Garcia
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What was the best approximation of π known to ancient Babylonians?
Wikipedia's Babylonian mathematics says that the ancient Babylonians usually used a round value for $\pi$ (3). But they knew a more precise value:
Babylonian texts usually approximated π≈3, sufficient for the architectural projects of the time. The…
Ynk
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Seeking anecdote on Emmy Noether and possibly Emil Artin
I have lost the reference to a story of someone (I believe it was Emil Artin) who found a strategy for understanding Emmy Noether's rapid delivery of new ideas during walks. It was to walk fast enough and long enough that Noether would get winded,…
Colin McLarty
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Ramanujan's Method for solving cubic, quartic, quintic
In Ramanujan's Notebooks Volume IV pg. 31 by Bruce C. Berndt, he describes an easy way to solve the general quartic by starting with the system$$x^2+ay=b\\y^2+cx=d\tag1$$
And solving for $x$; which gives you the depressed form of the quartic.
Now,…
Frank
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Robert Hooke and the Inverse Square Law
In
borel, emile, 1922, l'espace et le temps, paris: alcan
there is a claim that Robert Hooke discovered an inverse square relation of gravitating bodied prior Isaac Newton, who later applied it more successfully in astronomy (Hooke apparently…
Gottfried William
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