Billets de The Renaissance Mathematicus. ← tous les blogs
💡 Astuce : choisissez les blogs qui vous intéressent dans les préférences.
The evolution of a mathematical instrument – II
Before the proportional compass, there were the proportional dividers, better known as the reduction compass. This was a much simpler instrument but it also worked on the same Euclidian theory of proportion applied to isosceles triangles. A normal pair of ... Continue reading →
Pause
Due to other commitments I have hit the pause button and there will be no blog post this week Normal service will be resumed next week!
Take it to the limit one more time – a history of calculus VI
Once again this will be a post outside of the mainstream of the historical evolution of calculus. It is also another example of an independent parallel discovery in the history of mathematics, this time in medieval India. More specifically the ... Continue reading →
Visions of alien planets from Copernicus to Star Wars
Dennis Danielson and Christopher Graney are two of my favourite historians of astronomy. Danielson is the author of the excellent biography of George Joachim Rheticus (1514–1574), The First Copernican: Georg Joachim Rheticus and the Rise of the Copernican Revolution (Walker & Company, ... Continue reading →
Take it to the limit one more time – a history of calculus V
We have been looking at the historical development of the method of exhaustion in Ancient Greece and China. Parallels are often drawn, not incorrectly, between the method of exhaustion and integral calculus. However, there are important differences between the two ... Continue reading →
I done fucked up! In the last post in this series I stated that Zu Chongzhi's determination of the value of Pi was the most accurate until the sixteenth century and the determination of the German-Dutch mathematician Ludolph van Ceulen (1540–1610). This ... Continue reading →
The evolution of a mathematical instrument – I
Before the publication of Sidereus Nuncius in 1610 launched him into European scientific superstardom, Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) was a comparatively unknown professor for mathematics at the University of Padua. He had a reputation in Northern Italy as a highly intelligent, somewhat arrogant, ... Continue reading →
Take it to the limit one more time – a history of calculus IV
Take it to the limit one more time – a history of calculus IV Today, I'm going to deviate slightly from course and talk about something that didn't actually play a role in the development of calculus. There is a tendency ... Continue reading →
Half-truths about Galileo and the telescope all dressed up in a kitschy graphic
Every year in August various websites and social media accounts celebrate the anniversary of Galileo's demonstration of his telescope to the Senate of Venice, they almost invariably get the date wrong. Way back in 2009, I wrote and posted A Telescope ... Continue reading →
The astral sciences in the Ottoman Empire
Popular perception of history are almost always constructed out of half remembered facts, myths and legends and very often have no real relation to what actually took place. In the western world the popular perceptions of the Ottoman Empire are ... Continue reading →
Actu