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Is there an etymological dictionary of terms in physics?
There are of course many physics dictionaries and glossaries and some words can be found in general etymological dictionaries and even English dictionaries; but is there a Physics Etymological Dictionary, such as there is for math?
stafusa
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Origin of O/L for false/true in German computer-science texts
In Konrad Zuse's Plankalkül ZIA ID 0020 from 1972, in his patent submission Z23624 "Rechenmaschine" ZIA ID 0177 from 1936 and modern German Wikipedia article on the dyadic system, 2020-01-17 we see L for one and 0 for zero. In certain modern…
user11087
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1 answer
Were Gauss's 1846 remarks on the distinction between right and left related to orientability of surfaces?
Recently i was striked by a quotation of Gauss from a letter to his student Gerling from the date June 23, 1846. This letter states in very concise words that the distinction between right-handed and left-handed 3D cartesian coordinates system is…
user2554
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Chronology of proofs of cubic and biquadratic reciprocity laws
I just want to check if anybody knows a website where one can find a chronology of proofs of more difficult reciprocity theorems (such as the cubic and biquadratic cases) similar to the (already existing) chronology of 246+ proofs of the law of…
user2554
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7
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Who first reported the Crab pulsar's pulsing but was dismissed by an astronomer?
This answer to Has great eyesight been necessary for astronomers? mentions Astronomer Jocelyn Bell Burnell's recounting of a likely first visual observation of a pulsar. This can be found for example in Nature's Air force had early warning of…
uhoh
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7
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Why do we call it a "positive definite matrix" rather than a "positively definite matrix"?
The term positive definite matrix is a standard one used in mathematics, especially in linear algebra.
Are there grammatical, linguistic, or historical reasons why it was not called a positively definite matrix instead?
modnar
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7
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Where are Galois's notes?
There are a number of photos of bits of Galois's notes floating around online, such as here and here. But where are they, physically? I'm hoping what remained of them wasn't tossed out once photos were taken.
7
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Where does the material implication come from, if not from George Boole?
I looked through both of George Boole's treatises (1 and 2), but there is nothing like implication as I have seen it, with
$$F \rightarrow F = T$$
$$F \rightarrow T = T$$
$$T \rightarrow F = F$$
$$T \rightarrow T = T$$
So, if George Boole didn't…
Ben I.
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Where did Einstein propose interpreting the square of amplitude as probability density (Born's rule)?
In Max Born's Nobel lecture, he alludes to Einstein's proposed interpretation of EM wave amplitude (squared) as being the probability density of detecting a photon:
Again an idea of Einstein’s gave me the lead. He had tried to make the duality of…
Dave
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6
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Where did the false "equal transit-time" explanation of lift originate from?
It's supposedly a "widely circulated" false claim that wings generate lift because of their asymmetric shape, forcing air above to travel faster so that they meet up on the trailing edge at the same time as air below, and by Bernoulli's equation,…
eugenhu
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Foucault pendulum historical question
I was wondering if anyone knows if Foucault actually gave a mathematical description of his observations related to the apparent motion of the pendulum. And if he didn't prove it, who described the motion of the pendulum first?
twilight44
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6
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1 answer
Source for this story about Einstein learning algebra from his uncle
I have occasionally run into the following story (or a variation of it) about Albert Einstein:
Young Albert did not like algebra, and his uncle is supposed to have aroused his curiosity by telling him to think of it as a detective story, where x…
mweiss
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6
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First occurrence of the Bloch sphere in the scientific literature
The Bloch sphere is a geometric representation of a single qubit. I am having trouble figuring out when it came into common usage in the scientific literature. The wikipedia article, as at the time of writing this question, references a journal…
Martin C.
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6
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The origin of F=ma
Authors writing about history of physics describe that before the writing of the Principia several scholars were aware that if the orbits of the planets would be circular (which they knew wasn't the case) then Kepler's third law was consistent with…
Cleonis
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Who introduced cylindrical coordinates?
Cylindrical coordinates$ x=r\cos θ, y=r\sin θ, z=w$ seem to be a simple generalization of polar coordinates. When did they appear first? Also, who came up with the name?
J.Petrovic
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