17
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Accepted
What major areas of mathematics have been abandoned?
I would say that no area of mathematics has ever been completely abandoned. The areas go in and out of fashion, but nothing seems to be completely abandoned.
For example, approximately in 1940's most ...
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9
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What major areas of mathematics have been abandoned?
Geometry
I'm not sure you can really call geometry abandoned, but it certainly was much more popular a few hundred years ago (discovery of spherical geometry and hyperbolical geometry, parallel axiom ...
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7
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Seeking sources: Catholic church and the development of mathematics
"Examples of the Catholic church commenting on, or intervening in, the development of mathematics:" Counter-reformation issues in the 17th century around transubstantiation/consubstantiation ...
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6
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Seeking sources: Catholic church and the development of mathematics
I would add, as example, that can be a bit investigated the work of Padre Girolamo Saccheri, a Jesuit priest, and his famous "Euclides ab omni naevo vindicatus" (Euclid Vindicated from Every Blemish) ...
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6
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Seeking sources: Catholic church and the development of mathematics
You must tell them about the book Infinitesimal: How a Dangerous Mathematical Theory Shaped the Modern World, by Amir Alexander. It's about, among other things, how the Jesuit priests stopped the ...
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6
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Seeking sources: Catholic church and the development of mathematics
Cauchy, who gave calculus its modern formalization (cf. Grabiner's The Origins of Cauchy's Rigorous Calculus), was a "significant mathematician who was also a practicing Catholic." From Belhoste's ...
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5
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Is there an etymological dictionary of terms in physics?
After going through so many etymological dictionaries of science (mainly chemistry & mathematics), I still feel that the unabridged Oxford Dictionary is the best. It is not available for public ...
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5
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Textbook on the History of General Relativity
The closest I can think of is Pais's Subtle is the Lord, although it is not a history textbook but rather Einstein's scientific biography, which literally retraces his steps based on the author's own ...
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5
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Textbook on the History of General Relativity
To have one man’s steps distilled into textbook form is a lot to ask: who teaches a course on that? The next best thing might be the proceedings and collections in Einstein Studies (with contributions ...
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5
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What's a good resource for some of mathematics greatest controversies and debates?
One of the greatest mathematical controversies arguably is the one concerning infinitesimals: are they contradictory? are they useful? did Leibniz really use them? is there a connection between ...
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5
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What major areas of mathematics have been abandoned?
Another example is the study of configurations; its history is given in §1.2 of Branko Grünbaum's Configurations of Points and Lines, Graduate Studies in Mathematics volume 103, American Mathematical ...
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5
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Is there a good resource for the number of scientific literature published per year, potentially going back to the times of Newton or even Galilei?
Caveats
As far as I can tell from my research, due to the complexity of the task, there is currently no single platform that has a virtually comprehensive data base of all the scientific literature ...
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4
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Seeking sources: Catholic church and the development of mathematics
An interesting story is the one of Matteo Ricci, a missionary jesuit in China. He wrote the first Chinese translation of Euclid's Elements. He was also a cartographer.
Regarding real analysis, Pietro ...
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4
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What major areas of mathematics have been abandoned?
I suppose the prime example would be classical invariant theory (CIT), although agreeing with Alexander, and despite exaggerated news of its death it had some bursts of revival recently. It is ...
4
votes
Looking for books on the history of chemistry?
I recommend Norton's History of Chemistry by William Brock.
For a history of the periodic table try my own:
Eric Scerri, The Periodic Table, Its Story and Its Significance, OUP, 2007.
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4
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Looking for books on the history of chemistry?
I agree that there are (surprisingly?) few books on the history of chemistry.
The most succinct one is probably C. Cobb, H. Goldwhite; "Creations of Fire - Chemistry's Lively History from Alchemy to ...
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4
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Textbook on the History of General Relativity
Edmund Whittaker's A history of the theories of aether and electricity, vol. II
(Harper Brothers, NY, 1960) has a chapter on the history of general relativity with a lot of mathematical details.
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3
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Is there an etymological dictionary of terms in physics?
Asimov wrote one.
edit
Ooops, he wrote two
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3
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Existence of Pythagoras Resources
You can see the specific literature:
Walter Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism, Harvard UP (1972, German ed.1962);
Charles Kahn, Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans : A Brief History, ...
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3
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What's a good resource for some of mathematics greatest controversies and debates?
This is not a list of controversies, but you might be interested in Imre Lakatos' book Proofs and Refutations which describes the mathematical progress. For example it provides a discussion of Euler's ...
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3
votes
Seeking sources: Catholic church and the development of mathematics
Look up Bernard Bolzano, who should be known to all students of analysis through the Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem. His work became known largely after his death and after others had already ...
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2
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Seeking sources: Catholic church and the development of mathematics
There are gigantic lists (Wikipedia) of men of the cloth in Mathematics and Science:
(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_clergy_scientists
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
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What major areas of mathematics have been abandoned?
A lot of mathematical activities related to hand computing have been obsoleted by computers. Devising tables by hand such as logarithm tables, trigonometric tables, mortgage/amortization tables etc ...
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2
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Resources for handwritten scientific notes?
I don't think there is a systematic way to search for handwritten manuscripts, and they are rarely available on the web. One collection is here:
http://www.claymath.org/node/1370
If you press on the ...
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2
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Textbook on the History of General Relativity
Although not a text book, a very enjoyable account that covers the history of general relativity from Einstein (and before) to the current research and understanding is "The Perfect Theory: A Century ...
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2
votes
Accepted
Kolmogorov vs Marxists on Independent Random Variables
The book states at the end:
Kolmogorov’s story about saving probability theory in Russia comes from discussions with Alexander Razborov and a blog post (http://ansobol.livejournal.com/12551.html). As ...
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Resources for handwritten scientific notes?
Dirac Shoebox Collection at Florida State University contains various handwritted notes by Paul Dirac. A part of it is available online: https://fsu.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/fsu%...
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vote
Is there an anthology of classic papers on electricity?
See the hefty § "Magnetism and Electricity", pp. 387-616 of A Source Book in Physics by William Francis Magie. It contains selections, prefaced with a biography, of 37 scientists including Gilbert, ...
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Is there an anthology of classic papers on electricity?
If French works for you, O. Darrigol's Les équations de Maxwell: de MacCullagh à Lorentz (2005) is such an anthology, with comments drawn from his earlier book. Such collections are likely a dying ...
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