Timeline for Failures in math
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
6 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 19, 2021 at 14:11 | comment | added | Dave L Renfro | As I was reading your Martin Gardner excerpt I realized those passages sounded very familiar, and then I noticed they (originally) appeared in Skeptical Inquirer. Earlier I somehow I missed your mention of this magazine, probably because I was surprised to see the downvote. I've been a subscriber to SI since early 1979. | |
| Jul 19, 2021 at 4:25 | history | edited | Timothy Chow | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Added quote from Martin Gardner's article
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| Jul 15, 2021 at 16:58 | history | edited | Timothy Chow | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Added another reference
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| Jul 15, 2021 at 16:51 | comment | added | Timothy Chow | @DaveLRenfro Your suggestions are plausible. It could also be that people simply aren't aware of how much time and effort Newton spent on "occult studies." As Wikipedia says, the Portsmouth Papers consisted of "329 lots of Newton's manuscripts, over a third of which were filled with content that appeared to be alchemical in nature." By the way, nowadays such work strikes most people as "harmless crankery," but back then, Newton could have gotten into serious trouble for some of his views. That's probably why much of that work remained hidden from public view until the 20th century. | |
| Jul 15, 2021 at 14:47 | comment | added | Dave L Renfro | He-he ... I guess even you aren't immune to downvotes (not mine, BTW). Maybe it was because this isn't from the 19th or 20th centuries, or because this devotion in his later life was not considered as crankish then as now, or because his fame didn't diminish over time, etc. | |
| Jul 15, 2021 at 1:47 | history | answered | Timothy Chow | CC BY-SA 4.0 |