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1500 questions
26
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1 answer
How was Lagrange appointed professor of mathematics so early?
It is well-known that in 1755 Lagrange was appointed Professor of Mathematics at the Royal Artillery School in Turin. He was 19. His work up until then involves correspondence with Euler. Was he appointed professor by Euler's recommendation? If not,…
Rain
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Discovery of zero
I have read at many places that zero was discovered by Aryabhata but when i was discussing this with my mathematics teacher he told me that zero had already been discovered before Aryabhata and it was also used by Euclid. Aryabhata just made Asians…
Freddy
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26
votes
6 answers
Is there an astronomical reason behind the order for the names of days of the week?
The seven days of the week seems to be commonly named after celestial bodies. What I find curious is that all seven days apparently share the same names in both West and East.
Sunday is, of course, Sun's Day. In East Asia, it is 日曜日 - Day of the…
Semaphore
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26
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2 answers
How did scientists plot complicated graphs in the 19th century?
I am wondering how did Maxwell in the 19th century draw such figures as the one shown? What tools or procedures did he need?
Is it all compass and ruler drawing?
hat
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26
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Did Alan Turing know the German language?
In the film "The Imitation Game" Alan Turing, while being interviewed at Bletchley Park, confesses that he doesn't speak German, which almost makes him fail the interview. I think I read somewhere else (Simon Singh?) that breaking Enigma was one of…
bereal
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25
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1 answer
When did the names of scientists first become the names of scientific units?
Many scientific units are named after scientists, for example,
Tesla for magnetic flux
Farad for capacitance
Newton for force.
When did the tradition of naming scientific units begin?
user22
25
votes
2 answers
Why did Tesla disagree with Einstein?
Both Tesla and Einstein were brilliant scientists. Tesla said the following on the theory of relativity in a 1935 New York Times interview:
"The theory, wraps all these errors and fallacies and clothes them in
magnificent mathematical garb which…
user5738
25
votes
2 answers
What was the vis viva controversy, including its philosophical aspects?
Leibniz's concept of vis visa (literally translated as living force) was a precursor to our modern concept of kinetic energy. His formula for it was close to the modern non-relativistic one: $mv^2$, but not including factor $\tfrac{1}{2}$.
Vis viva…
Michael Weiss
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25
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What did Einstein contribute to Special Relativity that hadn't already been done by Lorentz in 1904 and Poincaré in 1905?
What did Einstein contribute to what is now called Special Relativity theory that hadn't already been done by
Lorentz in his 1904 "Electromagnetic Phenomena in a System Moving with any Velocity Smaller than that of Light"
and
Poincaré in his…
Geremia
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4 answers
Who invented the integers?
I know that Kronecker claimed it was God's doing, and that even prehistoric humans used some ways of counting. But I am curious where the idea of a sequence of numbers stretching out into infinity appears for the first time explicitly. I suppose…
Conifold
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25
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3 answers
Is Millikan's famous oil drop experiment a fraud?
I read in my mechanics textbook written by Goodstein that Robert Millikan cherry-picked his data in his famous oil drop experiment, and now I'm left wondering about the scientific value of his results.
It seems "okay" to me if one gets rid of one…
Shing
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When and why did the concept of relativistic mass become outdated?
While browsing on Physics Stack Exchange, I discovered numerous posts (these two are examples) which assert that relativistic mass is an outdated concept used in older textbooks. Looking through my own physics textbooks, I noticed the same…
Cicero
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25
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Irrationality of the square root of 2
We know that Pythagoreans in Ancient Greece discovered that the square root of two is an irrational number. Why was that discovery historically significant? What value was that knowledge to the Ancient Greeks?
Spectre
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25
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14 answers
What are examples of serendipity in the history of the sciences and math?
Cosmic microwave background radiation was discovered after Penzias & Wilson couldn't get rid of the noise generated by their horn. In fact, the noise was their discovery.
The strings in string theory were introduced in the context of the strong…
Deschele Schilder
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25
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6 answers
When was the first recorded use of subscript in mathematics to represent index?
(Disclaimer: apologies for any incorrect usage of mathematical terminology throughout this question.)
In modern mathematical notation, a variable with a subscript can represent a couple of different concepts relating to the notion of index.
For…
thBeam