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Plane/composite numbers as lines?
In the Elements of Euclid a plane number (i.e. a composite number), was represented by a line AB.
But, being a plane number a multiplication of two numbers (i.e. two lines, in the mind of a pythagorean) it should have been represented by an area.
In…
Benzio
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How did quantum mechanics become well known by (non)-scientific community.
Today it is well known even by the non-scientific community that there is a part of physics that deals with the very small called quantum physics. My question is how this became "common knowledge". I don't imagine there was a headline in a newspaper…
AngusTheMan
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Did Bertrand Russell leave the Second International Congress of Mathematicians to read Giuseppe Peano's Formulario?
The Wikipedia page on Giuseppe Peano claims the following:
At the conference Peano met Bertrand Russell and gave him a copy of
Formulario. Russell was so struck by Peano's innovative logical
symbols that he left the conference and returned home…
Franck Dernoncourt
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Reflections in the 18th century
It is well known that the theory of reflections was considerably developed during the 19th century with the development of group theory (e.g. Klein) and the theory of transformations. However, I'm interested to know who were the mathematicians that…
David
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The terminologies "Adjoint" and "Adjugate"
The adjoint of a matrix is also called the adjugate.
However, the word "adjoint" is also used in Linear Algebra for linear transformations, and the "adjoint of a matrix" and "adjoint of a linear map" are very different notions.
Question 1: For…
Groups
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Where did $P=VI$ come from?
Where did the basic physics law $P=VI$ come from? Here, $P$ is power, $V$ is voltage and $I$ is current. It doesn't have a name like Ohm's law, as far as I could find. So where did it originally come from, who invented it and when? Or what are…
wythagoras
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Physics Curricula of 19th Century French Universities?
What were the physics curricula for 19th century French universities?
I am looking for something akin to this distribution of courses at the École Polytechnique, but for other French universities, like the École Normale.
Geremia
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Books on Group Theory between 1885-1900
While reading the book of Burnside, the history gave interest to me to see further the old books on group theory.
It will be a great pleasure if one can suggest some books on group theory published between 1885 to 1900.
I will not worry for the…
Groups
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What did Lagrange do with his quantity (the Lagrangian in classical mechanics)?
When I was learning classical mechanics, I was quite baffled by the Hamilton's principle, since it involves a quantity named after Lagrange. So, it seems that the principle was not discovered by Lagrange himself. A natural question is then, what did…
kaiser
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Why was Rene Descartes not knighted?
I am curious to learn in more detail why Rene Descartes was not knighted like Isaac Newton and many other great mathematicians.
Joshua Banda
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Biography of L. Euler
Could you recommend a historically rigorous biography of L. Euler (if possible with discussions and examples of the mathematics he was doing)?
Edit: I'd rather prefer a book (not necessarily about Euler alone) or a thorough article.
nabla
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How did the theory of the Horus-eye fractions originate?
In a book, I saw a short anecdote about something called the "Horus-eye" hieroglyph, supposedly used in parts to represent fractions (the book dates to 1997). Wikipedia has an article on the symbol and states
Studies from the 1970s to this day in…
HDE 226868
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Scientific discoveries that were made "late"
I'd like to ask a similar question from Math.SE for the natural sciences (physics, chemistry, biology and allied disciplines).
What are examples of scientific results that were discovered surprisingly late in history? For instance, a paper where all…
Superbest
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In which paper did the typical textbook diagrams of the Millikan experiment appear the first time?
There are two typical visualizations for one of the results of the Millikan oil-drop experiment to illustrate that only integer multiples of some elementary charge occur in nature.
The first one is as a histogram like this one (source):
The second…
Julia
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Mathematical induction only dates from the Middle Ages?
The technique of "mathematical induction" is a method of proof where you show some theorem is true for some starting integer and prove also that it holding at any arbitrary integer implies it must hold at the following integer. From this you…
Robert Clark
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