Most Popular
1500 questions
7
votes
2 answers
Are ancient African mathematicians acknowledged in the history of mathematics?
I have yet to read a math book that mentions ancient African mathematicians at any length or level of detail. There is scant coverage in academic settings in the United States, perhaps elsewhere too. Most books have side notes that mention only…
AskQ
- 129
- 6
7
votes
0 answers
What events does the note at the beginning of Dialogue Concerning Two Systems refer to?
Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems opens with a seemingly sarcastic "Note to the discerning reader", beginning:
Several years ago there was published in Rome a salutary edict which, in order to obviate the dangerous…
Jack M
- 3,119
- 16
- 32
7
votes
1 answer
When did the use of the comma as a decimal mark become extinct in the US?
The US and the UK uses a baseline dot as the decimal mark. Most other European countries use the comma. Here is a short piece on the history of this matter.
My question is: When did the use of the comma as the decimal mark become (largely) extinct…
user67
7
votes
1 answer
Calculation of Gauss leading to 18:7 resonance between orbits of Jupiter and Pallas
After Gauss helped relocate Ceres, he studied the orbit of the asteroid Pallas and discovered (1812) that Jupiter and Pallas have an orbital resonance that is nearly equal to 18:7. For instance, using the modern estimates of their orbital periods as…
KCd
- 5,517
- 19
- 31
7
votes
1 answer
Did classical physicists feel ill-at-ease about point charges?
The point charge concept is clearly a very useful mathematical fiction, but it is also problematic from the point of view of "physical intuition". Even a layperson would feel that an explanation is required as to why a point charge is not split…
David Holden
- 271
- 1
- 5
7
votes
1 answer
What is the origin of the term recombination?
During the introductory lecture to a cosmology course I'm currently taking, there was a brief discussion of some of the "highlights" of the Big Bang model. One of these is, of course, recombination. This is the first moment in the history of the…
Danu
- 3,852
- 2
- 29
- 53
7
votes
1 answer
Which German scientists had their Nobel Prizes seized during World War II?
George de Hevesy famously dissolved the Nobel Prizes of Max von Laue and James Franck during the German invasion of Denmark. The Nazis had prohibited any German scientist from receiving or keeping a Nobel Prize, and de Hevesy hid the solution in a…
HDE 226868
- 8,453
- 4
- 35
- 66
7
votes
1 answer
How did the term "Michel electron" come about?
The Michel electron is what we call the electron produced from muon decay, and it's named after Louis Michel. I mention this in a paper I'm writing, and I was told that I need to cite it. I can't find anything that explains the origin of the name,…
Luka
- 71
- 1
- 2
7
votes
2 answers
When was the issue of time zones at different longitudes first described?
What are the earliest recorded acknowledgements of the concept that motivates time zones - that the sun and other celestial objects appear in different parts of the sky to people at different longitudes, observing at the same moment?
I would imagine…
Isaac Moses
- 173
- 4
7
votes
5 answers
Electromagnetics and vector calculus
A friend of mine claims that vector calculus was invented to do electrodynamics. I'm dubious. I know that Maxwell first wrote down the so-called Maxwell's equations in scalar form and only later converted them into their vector forms. Because all…
user1992
- 79
- 1
- 3
7
votes
2 answers
Why is magnetic flux density named after Nikola Tesla?
I have my respect for Mr Tesla, but it seems weird that "he" was chosen to be the units of magnetic flux density. I mean, he didn't contribute much to magnetic fields theory, nor did he work with them a lot. So why was it named after him? Why not,…
Eminem
- 181
- 1
- 5
7
votes
1 answer
With what kind of proof was the Binet formula derived for the first time?
As everyone knows, there are dozens of proofs of Binet's Fibonacci Number Formula.
My question is, what was the first approach used by Binet? What let people to say this result (the Binet formula) was known to Euler and Bernoulli?
albo
- 965
- 1
- 6
- 11
7
votes
1 answer
Who created the energy conditions?
The earliest text I've been able to find that explain the GR energy conditions is "The large scale structure of space-time" (1973) by Hawking and Ellis.
However in Barcelo and Visser's paper "Twilight for the energy conditions?" they speak of the…
Rammus
- 123
- 5
7
votes
1 answer
Was it technologically possible to create electricity, batteries, and electrical devices at the time of the Roman Empire?
I know this question sounds like it should be in the sci-fi site (and maybe it should), but I'm more interested in the state of metallurgy etc at the time of the Roman Empire (let's say around 0 AD) and if a modern electrical engineer, if somehow…
Marc Adler
- 181
- 3
7
votes
1 answer
Who named the fugacity, who coined the variable name and did it already relate to complex analysis?
In Riemanns monumental paper, he expresses a prime counting function as an inverse Mellin transform of the log of the function he analytically continued into the complex plane
$$\Pi(x) = \frac{1}{2\pi i} \int \log \zeta(s)\ x^s…
Nikolaj-K
- 211
- 1
- 7