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Who invented the Haversine formula (or at least the oldest paper in which it was cited)?
Note: this was original an example question, posted by neizod. As I mentioned in meta, it would be nice if we could get the example questions asked on the site. neizod did not commit to the site and has not yet joined, so I will place it here. I can…
HDE 226868
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6
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History of Plato's formula for generating pythagorean triples
I'm interested in the history behind Plato's formula $2m,m^2-1,m^2+1$ for generating pythagorean triples. Was Plato the first mathematician to come up with such a formula?
Nicco
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6
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Is there an explicit description of Landis-Petrovskiĭ's mistake in their "solution" to Hilbert's 16th problem?
The second part of the Hilbert's 16th problem (determination of the upper bound on the number of limit cycles for two-dimensional polynomial vector fields of given degree), proposed in 1900, is still open and a bit mysterious. Its varìous aspects…
Ali Taghavi
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6
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Did Leibniz use infinite numbers?
Arthur's recent article
Arthur, Richard T. W.
Leibniz's actual infinite in relation to his analysis of matter. G. W. Leibniz, interrelations between mathematics and philosophy, 137–156,
Archimedes, 41, Springer, Dordrecht, 2015
was recently…
Mikhail Katz
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6
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Did Maxwell invent the Maxwell's wheel?
Tried to find it online, but nothing. Everyone refers to it and that it's named after the famous James Clerk Maxwell (of the Maxwell electromagnetic laws and some other things), but there is no direct reference, and it's like the experiment has…
6
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2 answers
How did the exterior product get its symbol?
As per the title: where did the notation $a\wedge b$ for the exterior product of $a$ and $b$ originate, and/or who popularised it? I'm especially interested in motivation for the choice of this symbol (which also means "and" in logic and "meet" in…
helveticat
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What are the major flaws of the “caloric” theory of heat?
I was reading about the history of thermodynamics and came across Lavoisier's idea of heat. He proposed that heat was a fluid. I am curious to know what are the major drawbacks of this theory. I know that if heat is fluid then it must have mass and…
Student
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6
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What is the origin of "ortho-," "meta-," "para-," in chemistry?
The prefix "ortho-" means straight or right; "meta-" means beyond or after; "para-" means beside or along. How, then, did ortho-, meta- and para- come to refer to the carbon positions one, two, and three positions away from a reference point on a…
Bob
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6
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Who are the mathematicians Cammaille and Schouder, mentioned by Heisenberg when recalling mathematicians who died during the Second World War?
I found there (on page 98) the following quote :
Heisenberg: During the war I had five calls for help in cases where people were murdered by our people. One was Soloman, Hoffman's son-in law. I could do nothing in his case as he had already been…
Watson
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6
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Why doesn't Morse code try to achieve more compression?
I was working on the Morse code Wikipedia article , when I noticed something strange.
There might be a reason, but I can't find it.
As you can see, the code symbol ...-. is not used, however the code symbol ----- is. Why?
The first symbol is…
TomatoPink
6
votes
1 answer
Who introduced the creation and annihilation operators for the harmonic oscillator?
Or who first solved the harmonic oscillator in the algebraic method?
John
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What is the most ancient milestone of mathematical reasoning or mathematical knowledge?
I know about the Plimpton 322 tablet and Pythagorean triples. But can we be sure that this is the first instance of mathematical reasoning? I am talking about notions, propositions, or questions about mathematics.
I ask you if you can say what the…
user3537
6
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1 answer
Different models for the development of mathematics: Latin versus butterfly
Ian Hacking's 2014 book *Why is there philosophy of mathematics at all?", see here, contains many interesting ideas. One of the ideas is the dichotomy of two distinct models for the development of a science. One is the butterfy model. A biological…
Mikhail Katz
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6
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4 answers
Why are US Bonds measured in '32nd' ticks?
I am a programmer that has been working for fixed income financial companies for the past couple of years. As such, I have learned about a weird notation on fixed income products.
In the US, bonds are priced in 1/32 increments ("a tick") or 1/64…
getglad
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6
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Sum of like powers in real numbers
When and who was the first person to discover a correct formula for the real number $r$ in terms of any given three positive distinct integers $x
Bassam Karzeddin
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