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1500 questions
7
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2 answers
Did Galileo perform an experiment at the Leaning Tower of Pisa?
Galileo's pupil Viviani said that Galileo dropped unequal weights from the Leaning Tower of Pisa and observed them to take equal times to hit the ground. Galileo's own writings do not describe such an experiment, but it is clear that he did…
user466
7
votes
1 answer
Who created the first vacuum tube?
As far as I know, light bulbs existed early in the late 19th century, and the vacuum tube was created based on their design. But I haven't found any information about who came up with the idea to construct special, light bulb-like devices with the…
peterh
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7
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2 answers
Was Richard Feynman a double major?
I know this might be a silly question, but I think it's worth asking. For his undergraduate degree at MIT, did he do a double major with math, or did he really just get that good at mathematics by himself?
Arturo don Juan
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7
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2 answers
Discovery and Development of Coordinate Systems
I'm very interested to know how coordinate systems were discovered and why mathematicians discovered them? Actually I want to know what things motivated mathematicians to discover and develop coordinate geometry or analytic geometry. What problems…
Shahed al mamun
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7
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2 answers
What are the early examples of taxonomies in the history of science?
When you think of taxonomies, the first thing that comes to mind is Linneaus. But taxonomies were and continue to be used for all kinds of classification, from biology to astronomy and even linguistics and philosophy.
It's hard, however, to find an…
Teusz
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7
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2 answers
How were vector quantities developed?
I'm very interested to know how the concept of vectors came in mathematics and physics. How were vector quantities discovered in physics, and how and by whom were they developed?
Shahed al mamun
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7
votes
3 answers
When were fictitious forces introduced
Some problems in mechanics are simplified by considering the action of "fictitious forces". These appear in accelerated frames, such as circular movements. When were these first considered so? Did Newton himself deal with these types of problems?
Mark Fantini
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Who first discussed the Lorentz force with respect to special relativity?
The fact that a Lorentz force in a reference frame 1 can become a Coulomb force in another reference frame 2 has always astonished me, especially because the velocities involved are really small.
I wonder: who was the first to discuss this peculiar…
Gerard
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7
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1 answer
Why were hot-air balloons invented so late?
The first (documented) hot-air balloon was made in the late 18th century.
The materials necessary (wood to burn, sheets for balloon) were around for thousands of years.
Why didn't anyone think of this invention earlier?
7
votes
1 answer
What advances allowed Lippershey and Galileo to make working telescopes?
If a working telescope was barely possible at the time of Digges (circa 1570s), what technical advances allowed Lippershey (patent 1608) and especially Galileo (1609 onwards) to create working telescopes? In Galileo's case, he could easily view…
winwaed
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7
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Who first stated the "uncertainty principle" for Fourier transforms?
My question is clearly related to this one, but my interest is not specifically in Heisenberg's result. To quote from Wikipedia.
A nonzero function and its Fourier transform cannot both be sharply localized at the same time. A similar tradeoff…
CrimsonDark
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7
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1 answer
How does Legendre transformation in classical mechanics relate to Adrien-Marie Legendre?
I tried to look for the history of Legendre transformation, which transformed Lagrangian mechanics to Hamiltonian mechanics, usually formulated as
$$
\begin{cases}
p_i = \frac{\partial L}{\partial v_i} \\
H = \sum_{i=1}^n p_iv_i -…
Mr. Egg
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7
votes
1 answer
The Original Title of "Euclid's Elements"
What did Euclid originally call his treatise of thirteen books that we now refer to as "Euclid's Elements" ?
Was it "The Elements" ? Was it something else ? Does anyone know the exact Greek title ?
DDS
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7
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4 answers
Have all of Euler's works been translated?
I am interested in reading Euler's works.
The Euler Archive contains some translated works but not all of them. I am just checking here to see if anyone know a complete translation of all of Euler's works.
Preferably in HTML format.
Hisham
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7
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1 answer
What is the earliest mention of doubling grains on a chessboard story?
This is a story that seems to be an obligatory mention in either sequence and series lessons or exponential functions and today I've decided to track down the transmission of this story.
it goes like this:
One of the most famous legends about…
Hisham
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