History of Science and Mathematics

Famous Question

 Famous Question
Question with 10,000 views. This badge can be awarded multiple times.
Awarded 47 times.
Why didn't Einstein win a second Nobel Prize, for relativity?
Awarded Oct 11 at 3:50
Why were the SI-unit prefixes chosen to be a multiple power of 3?
Awarded Sep 25 at 13:33
In ancient times, how did people conclude that the shape of Earth is a sphere?
Awarded Sep 21 at 9:06
Are there any extant letters backing up the famous anecdote about Edmund Landau and Fermat's Last Theorem?
Awarded Sep 13 at 14:45
Did the ancient Greeks have zero in their number system?
Awarded Aug 18 at 13:56
Who was the first to say "Shut up and calculate!"?
Awarded Aug 14 at 14:53
When and how was the water cycle discovered?
Awarded Jun 26 at 15:40
Why are US Bonds measured in '32nd' ticks?
Awarded Jun 8 at 14:34
Ancient Chinese numbering system
Awarded May 22 at 20:27
Who introduced the Principle of Mathematical Induction for the first time?
Awarded Mar 16 at 15:15
Did the ancient Chinese know the earth is a sphere?
Awarded Mar 15 at 6:40
Why are $X$ and $Y$ commonly used as mathematical placeholders?
Awarded Aug 15, 2022 at 1:55
Discovery of Sine and Cosine
Awarded Jul 27, 2022 at 16:43
Old square bracket notation for units
Awarded Jun 2, 2022 at 21:21
Euler's first proof of $e^{ix}=\cos(x)+i\sin(x)$
Awarded May 11, 2022 at 17:00
How much did John Nash contribute to proving the Riemann hypothesis?
Awarded Mar 30, 2022 at 19:32
Did Einstein really say: "If I were wrong, it would only take one."
Awarded Jan 23, 2022 at 11:40
Was the word 'gravity' an invention of Newton?
Awarded Jan 14, 2022 at 17:22
How long has the order of priority of arithmetical operations been widely taught in high schools?
Awarded Dec 28, 2021 at 20:35
What evidence is there that Fermat had a proof for his Last Theorem?
Awarded Dec 22, 2021 at 22:31
Who first measured the distance to the Moon? How was it done?
Awarded Oct 31, 2021 at 22:42
Who first used the word "calculus", and what did it describe?
Awarded Oct 28, 2021 at 15:11
Which mathematicians died very young or in a tragic way?
Awarded Sep 6, 2021 at 0:57
Did Gauss find the formula for $1+2+3+\ldots+(n-2)+(n-1)+n$ in elementary school?
Awarded Jul 1, 2021 at 4:55
What did the Soviets do with German scientists after WWII?
Awarded May 4, 2021 at 17:57
Why are microwaves called "microwaves", when they are much longer than a micrometer?
Awarded Mar 3, 2021 at 10:27
What is the origin of polynomials and notation for them?
Awarded Feb 17, 2021 at 21:46
Why was Évariste Galois killed?
Awarded Feb 6, 2021 at 21:17
Is the "ques­tions that can’t be an­swered over an­swers that can’t be ques­tioned" quote by Feynman authentic?
Awarded Feb 3, 2021 at 0:25
Origin of 360 degrees?
Awarded Feb 2, 2021 at 11:06
How did people make things perfectly straight?
Awarded Jan 22, 2021 at 10:33
What is the difference between Calculus of Newton and that of Leibniz?
Awarded Jun 29, 2020 at 13:33
Story of Grothendieck's Prime Number
Awarded Apr 11, 2020 at 19:55
Why were 20th Century German scientists so impressive?
Awarded Apr 8, 2020 at 7:10
Who invented short and long division?
Awarded Jan 13, 2020 at 13:00
Why is kg the standard unit for mass and not g in SI?
Awarded Aug 5, 2019 at 7:15
"Calories" vs "calories"
Awarded Jul 15, 2019 at 20:55
How did Ramanujan learn to do mathematics?
Awarded Jun 1, 2019 at 2:15
Who first defined the "equal-delta" or "delta over equal" ($\triangleq$) symbol?
Awarded Feb 5, 2019 at 18:25
Examples of when the professional scientists or mathematicians were wrong, but the nonprofessionals were right
Awarded Jan 21, 2019 at 17:50
Was Aristotle really wrong about gravity?
Awarded Jan 17, 2019 at 2:10
Who invented the integers?
Awarded Jul 17, 2018 at 14:21
Did Abraham De Moivre really predict his own death?
Awarded Apr 24, 2018 at 15:27
What is the importance of SI units in Physics?
Awarded Jan 9, 2018 at 12:51
What are the most famous polymaths of the 20th century? [closed]
Awarded Sep 2, 2017 at 13:08
Discovery of zero
Awarded Sep 17, 2016 at 10:41
What famous theorems or results were proven by female mathematicians?
Awarded Oct 30, 2015 at 14:40

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