Newest Questions
4,986 questions
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Is there evidence that ancient Greek geometry was used to train argumentation in a neutral way?
Is there evidence that the development of geometry in ancient Greece was a way to train argumentation using a neutral topic (mathematics), which would not cause as much conflict as discussions about ...
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Why was the Bourbaki group opposed to Euclid and his triangles, as reflected in Jean Dieudonné's rallying cry: "À bas Euclide" (Down with Euclid)?
Why was the Bourbaki group opposed to Euclid and his triangles? As reflected in Jean Dieudonné's rallying cry:
À bas Euclide (à bas Euclide)
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What is meaning of this Isaac Newton's text?
What write under Newton name, "Irin: Call Cant" ? and at the bottom?
Who are they and why at the top left someone write with ink text from 1963 at original page?
source
Below is one more ...
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3
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The transition to modern-style formulas for lengths, areas, and volumes
Naturally nobody wrote $C = 2 \pi r$ or $A = \pi r^2$ or $V = (4/3) \pi r^3$ prior to 1706 when William Jones first introduced the symbol $\pi$. Euler is credited with popularizing the symbol so I’m ...
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On Gregory Karpilovsky and his background
Some weeks ago, I discovered a text called Topics in Field Theory by Gregory Karpilosvky. I have been kind of hooked on this text and reading it in my leisure time. Now, I have also been wondering ...
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What Gauss told Riemann about Abel's Theorem
I read this paper, What Gauss told Riemann about Abel's Theorem. If you look at page 6 of this paper, you will find this paragraph:
According to Betti, Riemann said he got the idea of cuts from ...
- 1,215
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Was there a special reason for using $j$ as the marker for nontrivial elementary embeddings?
In set theory, there are these functions called "nontrivial elementary embeddings" which can be used as introduction parameters/"generators" of various large cardinals and similar ...
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Summary of Christiaan Huygens's new results on stability of floating bodies
My question refers to Huygens's 1651 three-volume treatise "De Iis quae Liquido Supernatant" (About parts floating above liquids), which was similar in its essence to book II of Archimedes's ...
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Did Euler guess the Basel problem’s solution to be $\frac{\pi^2}{6}$?
(posted & answered, then closed in MSE)
I've been interested in the Basel problem and its famous solution
$$
\sum_{n=1}^{\infty}{\frac{1}{n^2}} = \frac{\pi^2}{6}.
$$
Recently I saw this video ...
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Errors in the Astronomy of Plato
There is a 1941 paper by Otto Neugebauer, called Exact Science in Antiquity (not to be confused with his book The Exact Sciences in Antiquity), based upon a talk given by him at the University of ...
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Why are Löwenheim–Skolem and Gödel's completeness theorem two different things?
Löwenheim–Skolem theorem and Gödel's completeness theorem are two major theorems in logic.
Both these theorems concern first-order logic, and are about model existence under certain conditions, ...
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86
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Looking for reference for quote from Kepler
I am looking for the source of a quote that my physics professor used to say. He attributed it to Kepler, but I cannot find anything similar. It was something like "I looked into the sky [looking ...
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Did Leonardo da Vinci discover the parabolic trajectory of projectiles?
I download a pdf of the Codex Madrid by Leonardo da Vinci, which are a lot of his notes of Statics and Machines, and in it I was suprised to see he traced out trajectories clearly going in a parabolic ...
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What was the reputation of École préparatoire (now ENS), Galois' alma mater, during Galois' life time?
Of all the grandes écoles except École Polytechnique, did École préparatoire require the highest score for admission? Or was it required score that were lower than those required not only by École ...
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Who discovered that vacuum tubes could be used for logic and computation?
When I search of the origin of vacuum tubes or even look up how they work, their usage as amplifiers is stressed, but their usage as logic devices is seldom mentioned. When I look up the background of ...
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