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What was the definition of a scientist and how did it evolve? When was science categorized?
I'm asking this question as I've noticed that scientists like Gauss, Newton, Euler, Lagrange etc developed theories in many scientific fields(these ones that I know of were mostly interested in math and physics). When I asked my physics teacher, he…
UserX
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When was atomism first considered a scientific theory?
Of course it is difficult, if not impossible, to know whether classical philosophers that talked about atomism thought that "atoms" could be manipulated by men. However, I was startled to know that even at the beginning the 20th century, there were…
mau
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Who replaced the solid Halmos QED symbol with the open one?
Who replaced the Halmos solid QED symbol $\blacksquare$ with the open square $\square$? In his 1955 "general topology" book, page vi, John Kelley attributed the original solid square to Paul Halmos.
The end of each proof is signalized by…
Alan U. Kennington
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How did Archimedes's water clock work?
I read that several principles of Al-Jazari's monumental water clocks were based upon earlier designs of water clocks by Archimedes, for example the use of valves, feedback system and flow control regulator. Apparently, Archimedes even wrote a…
user2554
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Was there a very early culture that's number system was 12-based, like ours is 10-based?
There are several uses of 12 in some old systems of measurement. Some of them make sense given current context (There are 12 lunar cycles per year), however some of them seem to be arbitrarily chosen. Just to name a few...
There are 12 inches in a…
Sidney
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About the LOR of John Nash, was there any relationship between Richard Duffin and Solomon Lefschetz?
In Academia SE, there is a question about the credibility of Prof. Richard Duffin, who wrote the notorious letter of recommendation for John Nash, who later received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Its answers focus on the credibility…
Ooker
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Was Riemann's zeta function paper based on Euler's unproven observation?
According to this website, we see that Euler formally proved (observed?) his result connecting the harmonic series and a product over primes. Riemann wrote his historical paper in 1859 which considers the same observation, but now with…
Clayton
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What were Riemann's other two submissions for his habilitation?
In Stalking the Riemann Hypothesis, Rockmore discusses how Bernhard Riemann, as per custom, submitted three potential areas of research for his habilitation. Gauss was the chairman of the committee responsible for picking which of the three Riemann…
HDE 226868
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How can we account for the independent inventions of place value all using the same direction?
I was looking up some ancient ways of writing numbers, to use as part of a lesson on the history of discovery of new numbers, for some young students.
In particular I looked at the notation used by the ancient Babylonians, Mayans, Chinese, and…
j0equ1nn
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Did Dieudonné say "Euclid must go!" or "Down with Euclid! Death to triangles!"?
In his famous address at the Royaumont Seminar in 1959, Jean Dieudonné famously called for the elimination of Euclidean geometry from the secondary school curriculum. In the published (English-language) version of his remarks ("New Thinking in…
mweiss
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8
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Who is the father (if there is one) of string theory?
I have read a variety of articles and books about string theory that relate the various initial discoveries that ultimately lead to a theory we know now as "string theory" (and its descendants such as M-theory, branes, etc.).
But, is any single…
K7PEH
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Why do we call a linear mapping "linear mapping"?
According to P. M. Cohn's Classic Algebra, for historical reasons we call a linear mapping "linear mapping". What are the historical reasons that led to the adoption of the term "linear mapping"?
Chilote
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8
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Where did Cartan introduce his notation for basis vectors and covectors?
There is a notation used in differential geometry and general relativity in which the partial derivative operators $\partial_\mu$ are used as the basis for the space of contravariant vectors, and their duals, notated $dx$, are the basis for…
user466
8
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How did Weyl's 1918 paper; Gravitation and Electricity, influence classical physics?
The main-stream view seems to be that Weyl's 1918 paper Gravitation and Electricity was initially considered a failure for reasons first pointed out by Einstein. But these initial ideas were reapplied to quantum mechanics giving rise to the idea of…
Larry Harson
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Are there any famous physicists that never went to university?
With the restriction of physicists after the year 1900, were there any self-taught physicists that achieved fame without having gone to university?
an offer can't refuse
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