# All Questions

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124 views

### Collection of open problems in Partial differential equations

Except Navier-Stokes equation, are there any other interesting open problems in partial differential equations? I want to know the collection of problems, which are easy to understand but ...
29 views

### When was the first quarter first used for moon phase?

For this doesn't make sense - we see one half of moon, not one quarter (at least compared to full moon).
58 views

### How does the concept of centre of mass came to existence?

I am wondering as how does the concept of centre of mass came into being. Considering the usefulness of the concept how were the physicist able to define such a quantity. I mean was it just trial and ...
110 views

### Do North Koreans use Latin letters in their equations?

Do North Koreans use Latin (and Greek) letters in their equations? On the one hand, being such an isolationist country, I wouldn't be surprised if they used the Korean alphabet (조선글) in their ...
45 views

### When was the inverse quadratic interpolation method first used?

Do you know anything about it? I couldn't really find something useful on web.
249 views

### Where are Galois's notes?

There are a number of photos of bits of Galois's notes floating around online, such as here and here. But where are they, physically? I'm hoping what remained of them wasn't tossed out once photos ...
374 views

### Historical origin of magnetic monopoles

There are two related historical questions that I'm trying to find answers to: Who was the first to introduce the concept of magnetic monopoles? Griffiths in his textbook Introduction to ...
82 views

### What is the source of this quote by Einstein on wave–particle duality?

I'm writing a paper which involves a lot of quantum mechanics. As a result of this, I'm finding it necessary to cite the likes of Einstein, Born and Jordan. Particularly in the case of Einstein, due ...
156 views

71 views

### Is there a record of how Newton built his telescope?

Did Newton write down his process of building a reflector telescope? Even with modern knowledge and technology, building one is no easy task so I'm curious of exactly what Newton did.
154 views

### Where did Mac Lane say he saw Hitler and wished that he had a gun so he could have shot him?

In Saunders Mac Lane's autobiography he described how he visited, I think Königsberg, then the centre of mathematics in Germany. He also reported he that he saw Hitler somewhere and that he wished ...
99 views

### What is the ancient cosmic canon of proportion and its role in the history of science?

Who had direct inside knowledge of the canon through the alleged secret oral tradition? Some possible examples that have been alluded to include Pythagoras, Plato, Euclid, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, ...
76 views

### How was (non-instantaneous) electric current first discovered?

How was (non-instantaneous) electric current first discovered and what were some of the main first thoughts on it?
1k views

### Who was the first to weigh chemical reaction products?

It is said that Lavoisier and Lomonosov both discovered that the cumulated mass of reactants is conserved. My question is simple: who (and when) started weighing chemical products before and after ...
65 views

### Did Darwin say that the human menstrual cycle length was influenced by the tides?

According to this article from the BBC's Science Focus Charles Darwin thought that the 28-day human menstrual cycle was evidence that our ancestors lived on the seashore and needed to ...
105 views

### Where are Pierre Samuel's videos of Bourbaki proceedings available?

Pierre Samuel's Wikipedia article claims (uncitedly): "He was a member of the Bourbaki group, and filmed some of their meetings. A French television documentary on Bourbaki broadcast some of this ...
74 views

### Thomas Kuhn and the Relationship between Astronomy and Cosmology

In The Copernican Revolution, Thomas Kuhn states that "...only the Western civilizations which descend from Hellenic Greece have paid much attention to the appearance of the heavens in arriving at [...
143 views

### Did Renaissance mathematicians once consider themselves inferior to the great ancient mathematicians?

In the book "What Do You Care What Other People Think?", Feynman talks about how in the 16th century Niccolo Tartaglia discovered a solution to cubic equations. He says while this was not a major ...
128 views

### What happened to the undergrad students who attended the Feynman Lecture Series in 1961-63?

Note: This question was originally asked here, but I was wondering if I could get further clarification as this has truly intrigued me. In the academic years of 1962-2 and 1962-3, Richard Feynman ...
68 views

### Why does 'Wheatstone bridge' carries Wheatstone's name when it was invented by someone else?

Wheatstone Bridge was invented by Mr. Samuel Hunter Christie. So, How come it carries Mr Charles Wheatstone's name? I would like to know what each of them contributed toward the 'Wheatstone bridge' ...
109 views

### Were decimal fractions known in Europe before Stevin?

It is commonly[1,2] held that Simon Stevin introduced the decimal number system with the decimal point (at least in Europe) in his 1585 book De Thiende. However, in della Porta's book Magia Naturalis, ...