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43 views

Is there relation between certain astrological aspects and talent for mathematics? [closed]

I did some modest research on relation between talent for mathematics and some astrological aspects, namely: the positive aspect of Mercury and Saturn, the positive aspect of Mercury and Uranus, ...
36 views

Did anyone ever propose the distinction between “divergent to infinity” as opposed to “divergent but with finite average”?

There are different regularization methods that allow us to ascribe finite values to divergent integrals, series or sequences. Still, in my view there is fundamental difference between divergent ...
182 views

Did Euler produce any Russian text?

Wikipedia says that Euler (1707 - 1783) "mastered Russian and settled into life in Saint Petersburg" in 1727. Did he produce any Russian text, mathematical or personal? I can only find Latin,...
60 views

Was Cramér the first to interpret the PNT's $1/\log(x)$ as probability of primes?

The Cramér probabilistic model of primes is built on the assumption that the probability of $n$ being prime is $$\Pr(n)=\frac{1}{\log (n)}$$ This is not a big leap from the Prime Number Theorem which ...
37 views

Einstein and relativity [closed]

What are the best books to learn Einstein's theory of relativity (general and special)? If I understand correctly, Einstein himself wrote once some essays about relativity... Does one obtain a general ...
34 views

How did Roger Cotes come up with logarithm form of Euler formula?

I have been trying to get my head around how Roger Cotes first discovered Euler Formula. I knew how Euler did it, but I wanted a new perspective, especially from someone who discovered it earlier. ...
48 views

history of curl and inverting the curl

A man in Tennessee has written to me, asking for a reference about the method in my answer to https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/81405/anti-curl-operator He is writing an article on finite ...
65 views

Einstein and geometry [duplicate]

Are there any serious biographies of A. Einstein that mention or support the popular accounts of Einstein's early interest in euclidean geometry and the Pythagorean theorem? Would you be so kind as to ...
1k views

Napoleon I and Fulton: Steamship rejection story real?

A fairly well-known story is Fulton offering to build steam ships for The Emperor and Napoleon replying something like, "A ship that sails by bonfires under its decks?? Away with you, visionist!&...
105 views

Original mathematical foundation of Dirac's function

In which paper/book (most likely) by either Sobolev or Schwartz is the Dirac function properly and explicitly substantiated as a functional (tempered distribution), preferably quoting Dirac's name? I ...
107 views

Is there any English translation of this Gergonne paper?

This is the paper: “Variétés. Essai de dialectique rationnelle”. Annales de Mathématiques pures et appliquées, tome 7 (1816-1817), p. 189-228 (“Varieties. Essay about rational dialectic”, By J.D. ...
46 views

What did Max Planck say about extraterrestrial life?

He appears to have considered the possibility of how to communicate with extraterrestrial life https://factslegend.org/physicist-max-planck-thought-of-a-practical-way-of-communicating-with-aliens/ But ...
72 views

Were Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion the first formal definition of an ellipse?

It seems to me that Kepler's Laws necessitate some definition of an ellipse in terms of a coordinate system. I am wondering whether Kepler's Laws mathematically defined what an ellipse is, or if he ...
166 views

Origin of Q for the set of rational numbers?

It seems many sources$^1$ attribute the use of the letter "Q" to represent the rationals to the N. Bourbaki group (in the 1930's); however, the Wikipedia entry on rational numbers claims ...
130 views

Origin / first use of $\mathbb{Z}$ (blackboard bold Z)?

I'm aware that the choice of "Z" comes from German zahlen (for "numbers"); however, I was curious to know when the dedicated font, which I believe is called "blackboard bold&...
73 views

Did anyone ever propose a hypercomplex numbers system with more than one anisotropic axis?

The real number axis is asymmetric against zero: for instance, multiplication of two negative or two positive numbers will produce a positive number, a square root of a negative number is not real, ...
212 views

When did it become a norm for mathematicians not to read proofs of all the results they use? [closed]

Please include evidence in your answer. This question is not opinion-based. I've heard that mathematicians sometimes don't read proofs. The following is a quote from mathoverflow. ... I think a vast ...
168 views

First use of term “Hilbert's Nullstellensatz”

This year (2021) marks the 100th anniversary of Emmy Noether's 1921 paper in which she introduced Noetherian rings and proved the primary ideal decomposition for them. The original version of her ...
89 views

Where can I find the actual first order formulation of ZFC Axioms?

I'm currently writing my thesis about ZFC origins, and I need a source from where to know who gives the actual first order formulation of ZFC. I got to the point where Bernays writes about it and ...
61 views

Mathematical research institutes similar to Banff and Oberwolfach [closed]

What other institutes such as these two exist for a visit by a scientist for an undisturbed period of short research? Ideally with a good landscape. Dagstuhl is another one I found.
65 views

Was there any known description of a general problem solving technique that is equivalent to trial and error before the 19th century?

Looking at this question made me wonder if there existed a description of the general problem solving technique that was to be later called trial and error before 19th cenutry?
105 views

Is there any relation between strabismus and mathematical or scientific ability?

By looking at the portraits of prominent mathematicians and scientists of the previous centuries it seems like they have a higher incidence of strabismus than the general population of today. Are ...
62 views

Who coined the term: “Directed Graph”?

I found that the term "Digraph" was coined in 1955 by Frank Harary in "The number of linear, directed, rooted, and connected graphs", and that it was a term actually suggested by ...
47 views

Was Kants theory of space and time inspired by that of colour?

Kants theory of space, time and causality is that they are the very forms of experience and ground all the other phenomena that we can experience. He called them the forms of sensibility. Kant studied ...
59 views

Beltrami's Essay on the Interpretation of non-Euclidean Geometry

I am reading the Essay of the title written by Beltrami in Italian and I found a specific point of the essay which in my opinion could be fully clarified only if compared with its translations. At the ...
131 views

How long have people been debunking the P value (statistical significance) as commonly used in the human sciences: medicine, psychology and so on?

I have been puzzled for a long time at the way psychologists and medical researchers state that they have 'significant' results, and at the way this statement is relayed to the public who are misled ...
64 views

Is there any evidence that Einstein knew of Cliffords speculation on the nature of gravity and electromagnetism?

Around 1870, William Clifford published a short note in The Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society describing all forces as an aspect of the curvature of space. This is the basis of ...
94 views

When was the earliest speculation that gravity and electromagnetism had a unified description?

In 1786, Coulomb announced his law that showed that the electromagnetic force between two charged sources followed an inverse square law. Given that gravity followed a similar law, did anyone suggest ...
65 views

Why is the constant of magnetic fields called permeability and that of electric fields called permittivity? [closed]

Basically the title, I found it weird that we use two different names for each fields. What were the reasons for doing so, historically speaking?
76 views

Who is the Dottie number named after?

I have learned about the Dottie number, though I am unsure to whom it is attributed to and why it is named as so.
59 views

Who invented the first pronunciation system for binary numbers that is roughly analogous to how we pronounce everyday decimal numbers?

Who invented the first pronunciation system for binary numbers that is roughly analogous to how we pronounce everyday decimal numbers (by which I mean how 220 is pronounced 'two hundred twenty')? ...
45 views

Any historical work on the distribution of prime gaps?

I am looking to see whether historic mathematicians did any work to explain the slightly unexpected distribution of prime gaps? I would have expected Gauss, who studied lists of primes and proposed a ...
38 views

Examples of when statistical distributions like Binomial or Normal distribution was critical in a law/policy decision, in a court case or otherwise

This was closed as off-topic on math.se, and it was suggested I post this here, so here goes. Firstly, I am aware that this thread exists, and I'll definitely be ordering a copy of the book, "...
72 views

Earliest proof of the soundness of first order predicate logic

When was the soundness theorem for first order predicate logic (quantification theory) first proven? Is there any evidence that soundness was presupposed or taken as self-evident prior to 1930?
166 views

A technical and historical introduction to quantum mechanics

I am curious to understand the history of QM. In particular, how did the physicists conclude that observables can be treated as operators, or the use of complex state spaces, or that Eigenvalues of ...
83 views

How is it possible that Pierre and Marie Curie's daughter Ève was so healthy?

I know that problems caused by radiation are pretty much random and unexpected at low levels of exposition but this randomness begins to be more probable when the exposition grows and this makes me ...
73 views

Why is there no notation for tetration similar to summation?

I noticed that we use $\sum$ and $\prod$ for summation and infinite product (I don't know why it does not have a name like the other two), but we use different looking notation for tetration. Is there ...
4k views

Did Galileo Galilei believe in astrology?

The Wikipedia page on Gallileo Galilei mentions, among other things: His multiple interests included the study of astrology, which at the time was a discipline tied to the studies of mathematics and ...
109 views

Origins of Stone duality

My question is a mix of mathematical and historical, if you consider my question will be better answered in the mathematics community, please tell me. I want to know the historical roots of Stone's ...
71 views

Tesla disagreed with relativity, who else?

I want to know which reputable scientists/engineers have disagreed with Einstein's relativity since its advent in 1905. I would appreciate it if the relevant sources are addressed.
2k views

Did Lorentz remain an ether advocate till his death?

I remember that I read somewhere that Lorentz remained an ether advocate till his death despite the empirical successes of Einstein's relativity in rejecting any kind of ether. However, I cannot ...
59 views

96 views

Why was there a thirty year gap between the compactness theorem and nonstandard analysis?

Why was there an approximately thirty year gap between the discovery of the compactness theorem (for countable theories) in 1930 and Robinson's elucidation of nonstandard analysis in the early 1960s? ...
133 views

Who named Black Hole?

A black hole is a compact region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing, even light, can escape from its event horizon, and, interestingly, Einstein didn't accept this viewpoint. Now, I'...
55 views

What is the middle name of George A. Grätzer?

What is the middle name of George A. Grätzer?