Discovering the Principles of Mechanics 1600-1800: Essays by David Speiser

ISBN-13: 9783764385644 / Angielski / Twarda / 2008 / 331 str.

Kim Williams; Sandro Caparrini

Opis

Kim Williams invited me to publish a selection of conferences which I had presented at various occasions during my stay at the UCL and elsewhere. She selected some papers which refer to topics on the history of science, especially on the history of mechanics. My occupation with the history of science began through the mathematician Andreas Speiser, my uncle, at the time the General Editor of the Opera Omnia of Leonhard Euler, who invited me to edit volume III, 5 of the Opera, containing Euler s work on physical optics. I accepted this offer with great pride and indeed, the task gave me much pleasure and satisfaction. Of all the scientists with whom I entered into contact, aside from Andreas Speiser, I must mention especially Alexandre Koyre. I had the great fortune to meet him at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton where we were both guests during the same period. Koyre also introduced me into questions dealing with philosophy of science, an important field, though one that plays a minor role in this present volume. Later I was invited more and more often to give lectures concerning a given subject, or one I working on at the moment."

Recenzje

From the reviews:

"The book contains essays of David Speiser on the discovery of the principles of mechanics. These essays were written in the course of several decades and re-edited, in part translated and are presented here in a chronological order. ... These essays will make a highly interesting reading and yield many and beautiful insights for anyone taking care for the development of one of the most important scientific fields." (H. Muthsam, Monatshefte für Mathematik, Vol. 157 (1), May, 2009)

"This book features a selection of David Speiser's best papers on the history and foundations of early modern mechanics. ... The chapters are independent of one another, but the editors have chosen them so as to achieve good thematic unity and a good sense of historical development. Speiser's historical work is well informed by his technical expertise as a practicing physicist." (Dean Rickles, Mathematical Reviews, January, 2013)

Spis treści

Foreword.- Introduction.- The Beginning of the Theory of Elasticity from Galileo to Jacob Bernoulli.- The Second New Science in Galileo's Discorsi.- Huygens's Horologium Oscillatorium and Newton's Principia.- Newton’s Principia.- The Science of Mechanics in the Eighteenth Century.- The Discovery of Rigid Body Dynamics.- Johann Bernoulli’s Work on the Theory of Gravitation and the Weight of the Atmosphere.- The Kepler Problem from Newton to John Bernoulli.- Daniel Bernoulli.- Leonhard Euler: Mathematician, Physicist, Engineer.- The Principle of Relativity in Euler’s Works.- Euler, the Principle of Relativity and the Fundamentals of Classical Mechanics.- Euler’s Anleitungen zur Naturlehre.- Euler’s Work in Physical Optics.- Euler’s Writings on Optics, Elasticity and Magnetism.- The Distance of the Fixed Stars and the Riddle of the Sun's Radiation.- Johann Heinrich Lambert.- Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis.- Editors’s Notes.- References.- Illustration Credits.- Index of Names.- Index of Subjects

Blurb

This is a collection of David Speiser’s essays on the history of mechanics during the crucial period 1600-1800. The purpose of the book is to make available in a single volume a selection of the historical papers and lectures assembled over the course of more than forty years of work. The history of mechanics is by now considered of importance for both physics and mathematics, but few historians are competent to address it and the definitive history remains to be written. Ordered chronologically to address historical developments in elasticity, rigid body dynamics, relativity, electricity, magnetism, optics and more by scientists such as Galileo, Huygens, Newton, the Bernoullis, Euler, Lambert and Maupertuis, David Speiser’s essays represent an important step forward. The book includes two lectures that were previously unpublished, and essays originally published in German, French and Italian translated into English, making the work easily accessible for a wide readership of specialists and non-specialists. In collaboration with the author, all essays have been re-edited, and the bibliographies and references have been fully updated. The book includes a forward by the author, an introduction by the editors, and two comprehensive indexes for easy reference.