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Mathematics in the Modern Age - the 18Th Century: Crossing Bridges Transcript
Mathematics in the modern age - The 18th century: Crossing bridges Transcript Date: Wednesday, 4 October 2006 - 12:00AM Location: Barnard's Inn Hall MATHEMATICS IN THE MODERN AGE - THE 18TH CENTURY: CROSSING BRIDGES Professor Robin Wilson Introduction After Isaac Newton had published his celebrated PrincipiaMathematicain 1687 – the book that explained gravitation and how the planets move – his life changed for ever, and in a way that would also affect the nature of British mathematics for the next 150 years or so. His book was highly praised in Britain, even though few people could understand it, and the reclusive Newton was now a public figure. After spending a year as an ineffective Member of Parliament for Cambridge University – apparently he spoke only once, and that was to ask an official to open a window – Newton became Warden, and later Master, of the Royal Mint, living in the Tower of London, supervising the minting of coins, and punishing counterfeiters. He had now left Cambridge for good. In 1703 Newton’s arch-rival Robert Hooke died, with repercussions for both Gresham College where he was Gresham Professor of Geometry, and the Royal Society which still held its meetings in Sir Thomas Gresham’s former house. The rebuilding of the Royal Exchange after the Great Fire of 1666 had been costly, and attendances at Gresham lectures were then sparse, so proposals were made to save money by rebuilding the College on a smaller scale. Parliament was petitioned for approval, with only Robert Hooke, now frail and the only professor resident in the College, holding out against the plans. -
Cavendish the Experimental Life
Cavendish The Experimental Life Revised Second Edition Max Planck Research Library for the History and Development of Knowledge Series Editors Ian T. Baldwin, Gerd Graßhoff, Jürgen Renn, Dagmar Schäfer, Robert Schlögl, Bernard F. Schutz Edition Open Access Development Team Lindy Divarci, Georg Pflanz, Klaus Thoden, Dirk Wintergrün. The Edition Open Access (EOA) platform was founded to bring together publi- cation initiatives seeking to disseminate the results of scholarly work in a format that combines traditional publications with the digital medium. It currently hosts the open-access publications of the “Max Planck Research Library for the History and Development of Knowledge” (MPRL) and “Edition Open Sources” (EOS). EOA is open to host other open access initiatives similar in conception and spirit, in accordance with the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the sciences and humanities, which was launched by the Max Planck Society in 2003. By combining the advantages of traditional publications and the digital medium, the platform offers a new way of publishing research and of studying historical topics or current issues in relation to primary materials that are otherwise not easily available. The volumes are available both as printed books and as online open access publications. They are directed at scholars and students of various disciplines, and at a broader public interested in how science shapes our world. Cavendish The Experimental Life Revised Second Edition Christa Jungnickel and Russell McCormmach Studies 7 Studies 7 Communicated by Jed Z. Buchwald Editorial Team: Lindy Divarci, Georg Pflanz, Bendix Düker, Caroline Frank, Beatrice Hermann, Beatrice Hilke Image Processing: Digitization Group of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science Cover Image: Chemical Laboratory. -
Ley De Conservación De La Masa
CULTURA CIENTÍFICA para la Enseñanza Secundaria LEY DE CONSERVACIÓN DE LA MASA: DE LA ALQUIMIA A LA QUÍMICA MODERNA Antoine Laurent Lavoisier Este trabajo ha sido realizado en el marco de un proyecto de investigación docente conce- dido y financiado por el Vicerrectorado de Es- tudiantes y Acción Social y el Vicerrectorado de Investigación de la Universidad Católica de Valencia San Vicente Mártir. CULTURA CIENTÍFICA para la Enseñanza Secundaria Con este proyecto se pretende que los alum- nos de Enseñanza Secundaria Obligatoria (E.S.O.) adquieran una cultura científica y co- Edita: nozcan que la ciencia, la sociedad y la tecno- UNIVERSIDAD CATÓLICA DE VALENCIA logía no se pueden concebir aisladamente. Vicerrectorado de Estudiantes y Acción Social Alumnos y profesores hemos trabajado desde Vicerrectorado de Investigación una perspectiva multidisciplinar a través de Diseño y Maquetación: diferentes asignaturas y Grados Universitarios. Medianil Comunicación / medianil.com Autores: Stephany Cuellar Mosquera Sergio Gómez Molina Mariana Herrán Gonzalez Rocío Navarro Salazar Javier Pérez Murillo María Rojas Chacón José Urpin Rangel Asignatura: Fundamentos básicos de Química Profesor/a: Dra. Ángela Moreno Gálvez Grado: Nutrición Humana y Dietética Coordinadora: Dra. Gloria Castellano Estornell ÉRASE UNA VEZ 3 Descubrimiento de la Ley de conservación de la masa Antes de Lavoisier la Química como de los productos de una reacción ciencia apenas existía. Los cono- química debe ser igual al peso de cimientos que había eran vagos los reactantes, estableciendo que y estaban incluso en ocasiones “la materia ni se crea ni se destru- mezclados con conceptos cercanos ye en cualquier reacción química”, a lo mágico o lo esotérico, según y transformando así la química en la tradición alquímica provenien- ciencia con mayúsculas. -
LAVOISIER-The Crucial Year the Background and Origin of His First
LAVOISIER-THE CRUCIAL YEAR: The Background and Origin of His First Experiments on Combustion in z772 Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, 17 43-1794, a portrait by David (Photo Roger-Viollet) LA VOISIER -The Crucial Year The Background and Origin of His First Experiments on Combustion in 1772 /J_y llenr_y (Juerlac CORNELL UNIVERSITY CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca, New York Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities/Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program. This work has been brought to publication with the assistance of a grant from the Ford Foundation. Copyright © 1961 by Cornell University First paperback printing 2019 The text of this book is li censed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommerciai-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. To use this book, or parts of this book, in any way not covered by the li cense, please contact Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu. Printed in the United States of America ISBN 978- 1-501 7-4663-5 (pbk.: alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-5017-4664-2 (pdf) ISBN 978-1-5017-4665-9 ( epub/mobi) Librarians: A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress TO Andrew Norman Meldrum (1876-1934) AND Helene Metzger (188g-1944) Acknowledgments MUCH of the research and much of the writing of a first draft of this book was completed while I was a mem ber of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, in 1953-1955. -
Study Guide for Oxygen
STUDY GUIDE for OXYGEN By Carl Djerassi and Roald Hoffmann 1 The authors of the play “Oxygen” have distinguished careers as chemists. And they also have a commitment to reaching out to the general public, each in a distinct way, through essays, books, poems, novels, and plays. “Oxygen” is a play they have written together. The play has been performed in the USA, the UK and Germany, and broadcast over UK and German radio. It has also been published in book form in English, and in German translation, by Wiley-VCH. The play and the book serve as an excellent introduction to the culture and mores of science and scientists. The nature of discovery, the critical role of competition and priority, the joy and drama of discovery, the role of women in science – these are some of the issues that emerge in a lively, witty play. We believe “Oxygen,” whether in play or book form, can serve an important educational mission, stimulating interest and debate about the nature of science in young people. To help teachers at both the secondary and university level to present the play to young people, we have written this study guide. It first summarizes the play, and gives an extended description of the main characters (a selection of literature on the protagonists is also included). Then it sets some of the historical background for the events of the play, especially that of an erroneous but plausible chemical theory, phlogiston. And the way the discovery of oxygen played the critical role in the chemical revolution. We also include an essay by one of us on the way science has been portrayed in contemporary theatre. -
Mind Almost Divine’ Kevin C
Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-66310-6 - From Newton to Hawking: A History of Cambridge University’s Lucasian Professors of Mathematics Edited by Kevin C. Knox and Richard Noakes Excerpt More information Introduction: ‘Mind almost divine’ Kevin C. Knox1 and Richard Noakes2 1Institute Archives, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA 2Department of History of Philosophy of Science, Cambridge, UK Whosoever to the utmost of his finite capacity would see truth as it has actually existed in the mind of God from all eternity, he must study Mathematics more than Metaphysics. Nicholas Saunderson, The Elements of Algebra1 As we enter the twenty-first century it might be possible to imag- ine the world without Cambridge University’s Lucasian professors of mathematics. It is, however, impossible to imagine our world with- out their profound discoveries and inventions. Unquestionably, the work of the Lucasian professors has ‘revolutionized’ the way we think about and engage with the world: Newton has given us universal grav- itation and the calculus, Charles Babbage is touted as the ‘father of the computer’, Paul Dirac is revered for knitting together quantum mechanics and special relativity and Stephen Hawking has provided us with startling new theories about the origin and fate of the uni- verse. Indeed, Newton, Babbage, Dirac and Hawking have made the Lucasian professorship the most famous academic chair in the world. While these Lucasian professors have been deified and placed in the pantheon of scientific immortals, eponymity testifies to the eminence of the chair’s other occupants. Accompanying ‘Newton’s laws of motion’, ‘Babbage’s principle’ of political economy, the ‘Dirac delta function’ and ‘Hawking radiation’, we have, among other things, From Newton to Hawking: A History of Cambridge University’s Lucasian Professors of Math- ematics, ed. -
The Sublime in Art and Science
C. Djerassi & R. Hoffmann, “Oxygen (Oxygen-15 version) (Not to be copied without authors’ permission) OXYGEN (A play in 20 scenes) By Carl Djerassi and Roald Hoffmann Carl Djerassi Roald Hoffmann Department of Chemistry Department of Chemistry Stanford University Cornell University Stanford, CA 94305-5080 Ithaca, NY 14853-1301 Tel. 650-723-2783 Tel: 607-255-3419; Fax: 415-474-1868 Fax: 607-255-5707 e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected] URL: http://www.djerassi.com 1101 Green Street, Apt. 1501 San Francisco, CA 94109-2012 Tel: 415-474-1825; Fax: 415-474-1868 25 Warrington Crescent, Flat 3 London W9 1ED, United Kingdom Tel. 44-20-7289-3081; Fax:44-20-7289-5902 1 C. Djerassi & R. Hoffmann, “Oxygen (Oxygen-15 version) Authors’ Biographical Sketches Carl Djerassi Carl Djerassi, born in Vienna but educated in the US, is a writer and professor of chemistry at Stanford University. Author of over 1200 scientific publications and seven monographs, he is one of the few American scientists to have been awarded both the National Medal of Science (in 1973, for the first synthesis of a steroid oral contraceptive--”the Pill”) and the National Medal of Technology (in 1991, for promoting new approaches to insect control). A member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as well as many foreign academies, Djerassi has received 19 honorary doctorates together with numerous other honors, such as the first Wolf Prize in Chemistry, the first Award for the Industrial Application of Science from the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Chemical Society’s highest award, the Priestley Medal. -
Hommes Et Femmes De Science
EXERCICE : HOMMES ET FEMMES DE SCIENCE PRESENTATION Objectifs : découvrir l’essor des sciences, ses acteurs, ses facteurs, ses méthodes. S’exercer à l’expression orale. Outils proposés : un corpus de fiches complémentaires présente des savant-e-s du 18ème siècle, leur fonctionnement en réseau, leurs origines sociales, le rôle qu’y tiennent deux femmes, les limites de la place qui leur est reconnue. On pourra les utiliser dans un travail de groupe, avec mise en commun et construction d’une trace écrite. Par exemple un schéma heuristique à compléter dans une phase d’écoute active, comme exercice de prise de notes… Compétences mises en œuvre : prélever et hiérarchiser des informations ; présenter à l’oral un exposé construit en utilisant le vocabulaire spécifique ; prendre part à une production collective. Intérêt des exemples proposés : focaliser sur ce moment de l’histoire des sciences permet de présenter un réseau de scientifiques, et de dépasser la figure du « héros des sciences » tel Newton. Le réseau de savants présenté ici comprend des femmes. Deux exemples de femmes de science : Emilie du Chatelet et Marie Anne Lavoisier sont deux rares exemples de femmes de science relativement bien documentées. Emilie du Chatelet est célèbre mais a souvent été présentée sous un jour qui n’échappe pas aux stéréotypes de genre : traductrice de Newton, passeuse, vulgarisatrice, frivole maîtresse de Voltaire. Or, il faut insister sur sa carrière propre et indépendante de scientifique. Après une jeunesse à la cour, et dans le monde, elle s’émancipe de Voltaire et se spécialise dans le perfectionnement des thèses de Newton. Elle fait la synthèse avec les intuitions de Leibnitz, qu’elle démontre, participe à des polémiques entre savants, réfute le secrétaire perpétuel de l’Académie des sciences dans la « querelle des forces vives ». -
Thomas Colby's Book Collection
12 Thomas Colby’s book collection Bill Hines Amongst the special collections held by Aberystwyth University Library are some 140 volumes from the library of Thomas Colby, one time Director of the Ordnance Survey, who was responsible for much of the initial survey work in Scotland and Ireland. Although the collection is fairly small, it nonetheless provides a fascinating insight into the working practices of the man, and also demonstrates the regard in which he was held by his contemporaries, many of them being eminent scientists and engineers of the day. Thomas Colby was born in 1784, the son of an officer in the Royal Marines. He was brought up by his aunts in Pembrokeshire and later attended the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, becoming a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers in December 1801.1 He came to the notice of Major William Mudge, the then Director of the Ordnance Survey, and was engaged on survey work in the south of England. In 1804 he suffered a bad accident from the bursting of a loaded pistol and lost his left hand. However, this did not affect his surveying activity and he became chief executive officer of the Survey in 1809 when Mudge was appointed as Lieutenant Governor at Woolwich. During the next decade he was responsible for extensive surveying work in Scotland and was also involved in troublesome collaboration with French colleagues after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, connecting up the meridian arcs of British and French surveys. Colby was made head of the Ordnance Survey in 1820, after the death of Mudge, and became a Fellow of the Royal Society in the same year. -
GREAT BOOKS CURRICULUM Core Author List
GREAT BOOKS CURRICULUM Core Author List 1. Chinua Achebe 49. Joseph Conrad 97. Hafez 2. Aeschylus 50. Nicolas Copernicus 98. Tawfiq Al-Hakim 3. Dante Alighieri 51. Charles Darwin 99. Hammurabi Code 4. Thomas Aquinas 52. Daniel Defoe 100. Thomas Hardy 5. Ariosto 53. Rene Descartes 101. William Harvey 6. Aristophanes 54. Charles Dickens 102. Nathaniel Hawthorne 7. Aristotle 55. Emily Dickinson 103. G. W. F. Hegel 8. Matthew Arnold 56. Denis Diderot 104. Martin Heidegger 9. W. H. Auden 57. John Donne 105. Tale of the Heike 10. Augustine of Hippo 58. H. D. (Hilda Doolittle) 106. Werner Heisenberg 11. Marcus Aurelius 59. Fyodor Dostoyevsky 107. Ernest Hemingway 12. Jane Austen 60. Frederick Douglass 108. Herodotus 13. Francis Bacon 61. Theodore Dreiser 109. Hesiod 14. James Baldwin 62. W. E. B. Dubois 110. Hippocrates 15. Honore de Balzac 63. The Egyptian Book of the 111. Thomas Hobbes 16. Pedro Calderon de la Dead 112. Homer Barca 64. Albert Einstein 113. Horace 17. Karl Barth 65. El Cid 114. Langston Hughes 18. Matsuo Basho 66. George Eliot 115. David Hume 19. Frederic Bastiat 67. T. S. Eliot 116. Zora Neale Hurston 20. Charles Baudelaire 68. Ralph Ellison 117. Taha Husayn 21. Samuel Beckett 69. Ralph Waldo Emerson 118. Aldous Huxley 22. Aphra Behn 70. Epictetus 119. T. H. Huxley 23. Jeremy Bentham 71. Olaudah Equiano 120. Henrik Ibsen 24. Beowulf 72. Desiderius Erasmus 121. Henry James 25. Henri Bergson 73. Euclid 122. William James 26. Bhagavad-Gita 74. Euripides 123. Thomas Jefferson 27. The Bible and Apocrypha 75. Michael Faraday 124. -
Downloadedcambridge from Cambridge Companions Companions Online by ©IP Cambridge130.132.173.15 Universityon Wed Jun 05 Press, 15:31:00 2006 WEST 2013
Each volume of this series of companions to major philoso phers contains specially commissioned essays by an interna tional team of scholars, together with a substantial bibliog raphy, and will serve as a reference work for students and nonspecialists. One aim of the series is to dispel the intimi dation such readers often feel when faced with the work of a difficult and challenging thinker. John Locke, the founder of British empiricism, was also the seventeenth century's staunchest defender of reason in religion and politics. His Essay concerningHuman Under standing influenced eighteenth-century thought more pro foundly than any book save the Bible; his Two Tr eatises of Government helped inspire the American and French revo lutions; and much of his work is pertinent to current intel lectual and social problems. The essays in this volume pro vide a systematic survey of Locke's philosophy, informed by the most recent scholarship. They cover Locke's theory of ideas, his philosophies of body, mind, language, and religion, his theory of knowledge, his ethics, and his political philos ophy. There are also chapters on Locke's life and times and subsequent influence. New readers and nonspecialists will find this the most convenient and accessible guide to Locke currently avail able. Advanced students and specialists will find a conspec tus of recent developments in the interpretation of Locke's philosophy. DownloadedCambridge from Cambridge Companions Companions Online by ©IP Cambridge130.132.173.15 Universityon Wed Jun 05 Press, 15:31:00 2006 WEST 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521383714.013 Cambridge Companions Online © Cambridge University Press, 2013 THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO LOCKE DownloadedCambridge from Cambridge Companions Companions Online by ©IP Cambridge130.132.173.15 Universityon Wed Jun 05 Press, 15:31:00 2006 WEST 2013. -
Blind Mathematicians
The World of Blind Mathematicians A visitor to the Paris apartment of the blind geome- able to resort to paper and pencil, Lawrence W. ter Bernard Morin finds much to see. On the wall Baggett, a blind mathematician at the University of in the hallway is a poster showing a computer- Colorado, remarked modestly, “Well, it’s hard to do generated picture, created by Morin’s student for anybody.” On the other hand, there seem to be François Apéry, of Boy’s surface, an immersion of differences in how blind mathematicians perceive the projective plane in three dimensions. The sur- their subject. Morin recalled that, when a sighted face plays a role in Morin’s most famous work, his colleague proofread Morin’s thesis, the colleague visualization of how to turn a sphere inside out. had to do a long calculation involving determi- Although he cannot see the poster, Morin is happy nants to check on a sign. The colleague asked Morin to point out details in the picture that the visitor how he had computed the sign. Morin said he must not miss. Back in the living room, Morin grabs replied: “I don’t know—by feeling the weight of the a chair, stands on it, and feels for a box on top of thing, by pondering it.” a set of shelves. He takes hold of the box and climbs off the chair safely—much to the relief of Blind Mathematicians in History the visitor. Inside the box are clay models that The history of mathematics includes a number of Morin made in the 1960s and 1970s to depict blind mathematicians.