Questions tagged [examples]
For questions about specific occurrences of a distinct character (to be specified in the question) in the history of science or mathematics.
30 questions
0
votes
1
answer
162
views
What are some examples of elegant solutions?
There are various problems in history such as the Basel problem which was solved by Euler using the Taylor expansion of the sine, then later by Cauchy by bounding the partial sum, both solutions were ...
1
vote
0
answers
96
views
Who are some famous statisticians from the 20th and 21st centuries, who didn't have a formal training in statistics?
I'm looking for examples of people who made some important contributions to the field of statistics, yet their original training was not in statistics and they may have learned it 'on the job', while ...
- 11
7
votes
5
answers
454
views
Math concepts introduced by physicists and made rigorous later
I am looking for mathematical concepts (*) which have been introduced by physicists in a non rigorous way (e.g. without a formal definition, without rigorous proofs of the results, etc.) and used to ...
- 399
15
votes
5
answers
5k
views
Great battles in the history of mathematics
Could someone list me the most important battles between mathematicians which happened in history, especially such that strong emotions played role in that time?
Perhaps the most known one is the ...
- 317
16
votes
10
answers
4k
views
Works of scientists, philosophers and mathematicians that (re)surfaced after a long time
Sometimes, for one reason or the other, the works of scholars get lost. In some cases, they're lost forever. This happened to many books during the fire of the library of Alexandria, for instance.
...
0
votes
3
answers
294
views
Who are some scientists that were convicted for non-war non-political crimes?
I discovered that John Robert Schrieffer (Nobel Prize in Physics 1972 for superconductivity theory) was in prison after a tragic car accident (1 person died, 7 were injured) where he was driving ...
- 5,381
3
votes
7
answers
581
views
Examples of flattering comments from a famous scientist concerning a young colleague
I want to know examples of very flattering comments from famous scientists or mathematicians concerning younger colleagues. Here's an example of what I have in mind (I shall provide more as an answer):...
- 5,976
4
votes
6
answers
379
views
Examples of mathematicians who applied to patent their work
MIT's RSA encryption was granted a patent although it was not enforced for non-commercial applications. Similarly for Stanford's PGP encryption algorithm. However, these are institutions rather than ...
- 7,227
3
votes
6
answers
464
views
What are some physicists that wrote literary works?
As usual when I see an article about asking about mathematicians, I cannot help to ask what about physics? Inspired by Literary works authored by mathematicians what are some physicist that also were ...
- 5,381
3
votes
1
answer
123
views
Historical examples of frauds discovered because someone tried to mimic a uniform random sequence
So, I'm preparing a talk about the well known fact that humans are bad at the task of generating uniformly random sequences of numbers when asked to do so.
I would like to spice the talk a bit by ...
- 131
6
votes
8
answers
2k
views
Are there any well known mathematicians who were fascists?
I only recently learned that Pascual Jordan, a well known physicist, with significant contributions to the development of early quantum mechanics was a paid member of the Nazi Party. He in fact joined ...
- 3,740
4
votes
1
answer
291
views
What were some historically important Fermi estimates in the history of science?
What were some back-of-the-envelope estimates that scientists made where the result of the estimate was important to either the intellectual development of the field or had significant social ...
- 475
2
votes
2
answers
2k
views
What are the definitive experiments/phenomena which motivate quantum mechanics?
The double slit experiment is usually given as the foremost example of a physical experiment that requires quantum mechanics to satisfactorily explain. However, every account i've seen of it (such as ...
- 23
11
votes
17
answers
1k
views
Examples of papers co-authored by parent/child, or siblings
I hope this question is not inappropriate for this site; I found hsm.stackexchange better suited for it than MathOverflow or math.stackexchange. The motivation for it is just curiosity.
Question: ...
- 1,012
11
votes
4
answers
604
views
What are some of the earliest mentions of scientific "cranks"?
Often professors in math and physics academia have inboxes full of people claiming to have solved deep problems such as dark matter, black holes, prime number conjectures and claim that many big names ...
- 143
86
votes
18
answers
27k
views
Examples of when the professional scientists or mathematicians were wrong, but the nonprofessionals were right
What are the most glaring examples — if any — of when the professional scientists or mathematicians were wrong, but the nonprofessionals were right?
- 869
16
votes
3
answers
829
views
What are natural science concepts that were once thought the same, but grew to be distinguished?
The history of physics is full of examples of phenomena that used to be described independently, until additional insight proved they were the same thing.
Some famous instances are
motion of bullets ...
- 285
8
votes
5
answers
2k
views
Failures in math
I would like to have help in producing examples of mathematicians that, in some sense I'll explain below,turned their career into failure. I am mainly interested in examples from XIX and XXth century.
...
- 1,738
1
vote
3
answers
4k
views
Famous messy scientists
Which scientists were known to be messy?
I know of Albert Einstein:
And of Jean Piaget:
Are there other examples?
- 121
2
votes
0
answers
388
views
The Pedagogy of Physics -- Bob and Alice?
It seems that almost every where that physics is taught, in particular teaching relativity or quantum phenomena, that examples or demonstrations using persons Bob and Alice is a common tradition. ...
- 1,149
24
votes
22
answers
5k
views
Literary works authored by mathematicians
At a first glance, Mathematics and Literature look like two completely unrelated subjects.
I wonder whether there are examples of acclaimed mathematicians which wrote novels, poems, or other ...
- 553
6
votes
1
answer
239
views
Source for Weierstrass's quote "Any function addition law is due to an elliptic curve lurking in the background."
"Any function addition law is due to an elliptic curve lurking in the background."
When I was reading about the origin of the concept of a genus, I came across a quote along these lines, I believe ...
- 343
5
votes
4
answers
824
views
Scientific discoveries that were made "late"
I'd like to ask a similar question from Math.SE for the natural sciences (physics, chemistry, biology and allied disciplines).
What are examples of scientific results that were discovered ...
- 151
8
votes
3
answers
2k
views
Scientists with exceptionally good or bad memory
I'd like to know about examples of prominent scientists having exceptionally good memory, with anecdotes if possible, and how it affected their work. It would also be interesting to see examples of ...
- 1,152
14
votes
5
answers
726
views
Which school of philosophy motivated thinking about spaces of higher dimension?
I'm trying to make a link between important mathematical breakthroughs in history and the important philosophical schools at the time. I realize that this topic is awfully broad and could be the ...
- 1,152
16
votes
8
answers
9k
views
Famous Scientific Conflicts and Controversies
To clear any misunderstandings, I am interested not in the gossipy aspect of the matter (i.e. conflicts that had mainly to do with character-clashes and idiosyncratic psychs) but rather in conflicts ...
18
votes
5
answers
764
views
Considered a breakthrough at its time – almost forgotten nowadays
In the comments on this question on Physics about the usefulness of expensive experiments such as the CERN, the following short discussion happened:
Has there ever been a major basic science result ...
- 1,052
18
votes
1
answer
4k
views
Examples of Kuhn loss?
A Kuhn loss is:
a success, empirical or theoretical, of a prior theory – or paradigm as Kuhn would have preferred – that does not carry over to the theory or paradigm that replaced it. [Midwinter ...
- 4,922
50
votes
5
answers
6k
views
Was Occam’s razor ever wrong?
In brief, I am looking for an example where Occam’s razor favoured a theory A over another theory B, but theory B turned out to be a better description of reality later. But let me formulate some ...
- 1,052
18
votes
4
answers
856
views
Scientific progress claimed to be caused by dreaming
Kekulé, who discovered the chemical formula for benzene in 1865, claimed that he had guessed the ring formula with the alternating single and double bonds in a day-dream. Are there similar examples of ...
- 1,597