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speed of light measurement
while searching for different methods of speed of light measurement, i came across one of the method of fizeau discussed below which i cannot fully understand.
In short,in Fizeau’s apparatus, a
beam of light was shone between the teeth of
a rapidly…
user65445
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Who is Donald L. Webb
In the theory of boolean functions Sheffer's stroke is well-known. It is generalized for k-valued logic and known as Webb function:
$$
\mathrm{Webb}(x,y)=\max(x,y)+1;
$$
I want to find some information about Donald L. Webb -- the possible creator of…
Michael Freimann
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8
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On the use of $\mathrm{\delta^{18}O}$ as temperature proxy
$\mathrm{\delta^{18}O}$ (i. e. the ratio of $\mathrm{^{18}O/^{16}O}$ compared to a standard) is massively used today in paleoclimatology as a global temperature proxy.
But how did it become a proxy for temperature? When and by whom was the…
plannapus
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Day-to-day tasks of human computers, à la Hidden Figures movie
I was fascinated by the film Hidden Figures, and a related article from New Scientist magazine Gifted and black: The brilliant woman who got the US into space.
I'm trying to understand more about what it was like, before electronic computers, for…
nealmcb
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8
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How did Newton come up with his formula for gravitational force?
In high school students are taught the formula that describes the universal gravitational force $F=G\frac{m_1 m_2}{r^2}$. However it is not taught how and why Newton came up with it. Does Newton give a demonstration of the formula?
PunkZebra
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8
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Did Bruns establish that the 3 body problem has no non-trivial conservation laws?
I'm reading Colin Pask's book Magnificent Principia and in 16.7.2 he states that the difficulty of the 3 body problem is in part tied to the lack of additional conservation laws at our disposal. In particular he says this with respect to Heinrich…
L.P.
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8
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How was Newton's classification of cubic curves completed?
According to what I have read, using Newton’s methods there are 78 different families of cubic curves. Newton discovered 72 of them while “subsequent research identified another 6”. This paper suggests that those overlooked by Newton are…
nwr
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Where can I find the original presentation of the proof, due to Grothendieck, of the $\bar\partial$-Poincaré lemma?
In complex geometry, there is the a lemma, analogous to the Poincaré lemma in (real) differential geometry, which states that a $(p,q)$-form that is $\bar\partial$-closed is locally $\bar\partial$-exact. In the book Complex Geometry by Huybrechts,…
Danu
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8
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History of complex analysis
Does anyone know of a good book on the history of imaginary numbers and complex analysis and its role in physics?
user3880994
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8
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What happened to the meter bars?
Throughout the centuries the meter has been redefined a number of times. At one point it was defined in relation to the distance from the north pole to the equator. Seeing how that is a bit of an awkward standard to use, a set of platinum bars was…
Justin Gerhardt
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What is the history of electric current and resistance?
Thomas Kuhn writes in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Part of what the acceptance of Ohm’s Law demanded was a redefinition of both ‘current’ and ‘resistance’; if those terms had continued to mean what they had meant before, Ohm’s Law could…
Christian
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8
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Where did Rayleigh derive the ultraviolet catastrophe?
Where can I find this paper:
J.W. Strutt, Verh. d. deutsch. phys. Ges. 2, 65 (1900).
It is presumably where Rayleigh derived the black-body radiation formula (the incorrect one that has ultraviolet infinity).
Given the fact that this paper is, at…
user2831
8
votes
2 answers
Has there been debate between relationship of philosophy of mathematics and physics?
Did there exist and does there still exist a debate over which school of mathematical thought (i.e. formalism, logicism, intuitionism, etc.) had the most affinity or application for physics? In particular, I am looking at if a case can be made…
user278039
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8
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Who discovered the magnetic vector potential, $\vec{A}$?
Neither Maxwell’s fundamental differential equations on electromagnetism nor Einstein’s first papers considered the magnetic vector potential A.
So who discovered, formulated or used A for the first time?
Realist753
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Origin of "Spline" word
I was studying interpolation by Splines in numerical analysis and started to wonder the word's origin. I've found that it was a system used in technical drawings using weights but couldn't find why they where called like that in that context. Any…
bk.us
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