This book presents important works by the Scottish mathematician Colin MacLaurin (1698-1746), translated in English for the first time. It includes three of the mathematician s less known and often hard to obtain works. A general introduction puts the works in context and gives an outline of MacLaurin's career. Each translation is also accompanied by an introduction and analyzed both in modern terms and from a historical point of view.
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This book presents important works by the Scottish mathematician Colin MacLaurin (1698-1746), translated in English for the first time. It includes...
China s most sophisticated system of computational astronomy was created for a Mongol emperor who could neither read nor write Chinese, to celebrate victory over China after forty years of devastating war. This book explains how and why, and reconstructs the observatory and the science that made it possible.
For two thousand years, a fundamental ritual of government was the emperor s granting the seasons to his people at the New Year by issuing an almanac containing an accurate lunisolar calendar. The high point of this tradition was the Season-granting system (Shou-shih li, 1280). Its...
China s most sophisticated system of computational astronomy was created for a Mongol emperor who could neither read nor write Chinese, to celebrat...
The Hill Brown theory of the Moon s motion was constructed in the years from 1877 to 1908, and adopted as the basis for the lunar ephemerides in the nautical almanacs of the US, UK, Germany, France, and Spain beginning in 1923. At that time and for some decades afterward, it was the most accurate lunar theory ever constructed. Its accuracy was due, rst, to a novel choice of intermediary orbit or rst approxi- tion, more nearly closing in on the Moon s actual motion than any elliptical orbit ever could, and secondly to the care and discernment and stick-to-it-ive-ness with which the further...
The Hill Brown theory of the Moon s motion was constructed in the years from 1877 to 1908, and adopted as the basis for the lunar ephemerides in the n...
The question of when and how the basic concepts that characterize modern science arose in Western Europe has long been central to the history of science. This book examines the transition from Renaissance engineering and philosophy of nature to classical mechanics oriented on the central concept of velocity. For this new edition, the authors include a new discussion of the doctrine of proportions, an analysis of the role of traditional statics in the construction of Descartes' impact rules, and go deeper into the debate between Descartes and Hobbes on the explanation of refraction. They...
The question of when and how the basic concepts that characterize modern science arose in Western Europe has long been central to the history of sc...
Apollonius's Conics was one of the greatest works of advanced mathematics in antiquity. The work comprised eight books, of which four have come down to us in their original Greek and three in Arabic. By the time the Arabic translations were produced, the eighth book had already been lost. In 1710, Edmond Halley, then Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford, produced an edition of the Greek text of the Conics of Books I-IV, a translation into Latin from the Arabic versions of Books V-VII, and a reconstruction of Book VIII.
The present work provides the first complete English...
Apollonius's Conics was one of the greatest works of advanced mathematics in antiquity. The work comprised eight books, of which four have come dow...
This volume is, as may be readily apparent, the fruit of many years labor in archives and libraries, unearthing rare books, researching Nachlasse, and above all, systematic comparative analysis of fecund sources. The work not only demanded much time in preparation, but was also interrupted by other duties, such as time spent as a guest professor at universities abroad, which of course provided welcome opportunities to present and discuss the work, and in particular, the organizing of the 1994 International Grassmann Conference and the subsequent editing of its proceedings. If it is not...
This volume is, as may be readily apparent, the fruit of many years labor in archives and libraries, unearthing rare books, researching Nachlasse, and...
Leonardo da Pisa, perhaps better known as Fibonacci (ca. 1170 ca. 1240), selected the most useful parts of Greco-Arabic geometry for the book known as De practica geometrie. Beginning with the definitions and constructions found early on in Euclid s Elements, Fibonacci instructed his reader how to compute with Pisan units of measure, find square and cube roots, determine dimensions of both rectilinear and curved surfaces and solids, work with tables for indirect measurement, and perhaps finally fire the imagination of builders with analyses of pentagons and decagons. His work exceeded what...
Leonardo da Pisa, perhaps better known as Fibonacci (ca. 1170 ca. 1240), selected the most useful parts of Greco-Arabic geometry for the book known...
The theory of series in the 17th and 18th centuries poses several interesting problems to historians. Indeed, mathematicians of the time derived num- ous results that range from the binomial theorem to the Taylor formula, from the power series expansions of elementary functions to trigonometric series, from Stirling s series to series solution of di?erential equations, from theEuler MaclaurinsummationformulatotheLagrangeinversiontheorem, from Laplace s theory of generating functions to the calculus of operations, etc. Most of these results were, however, derived using methods that would be...
The theory of series in the 17th and 18th centuries poses several interesting problems to historians. Indeed, mathematicians of the time derived num- ...
L.E.J. Brouwer (1881-1966) is best known for his revolutionary ideas on topology and foundations of mathematics (intuitionism). The present collection contains a mixture of letters; university and faculty correspondence has been included, some of which shed light on the student years, and in particular on the exchange of letters with his PhD adviser, Korteweg. Acting as the natural sequel to the publication of Brouwer's biography, this book provides instrumental reading for those wishing to gain a deeper understanding of Brouwer and his role in the twentieth century. Striking a good...
L.E.J. Brouwer (1881-1966) is best known for his revolutionary ideas on topology and foundations of mathematics (intuitionism). The present collection...
The discovery of a gradual acceleration in the moon's mean motion by Edmond Halley in the last decade of the seventeenth century led to a revival of interest in reports of astronomical observations from antiquity. These observations provided the only means to study the moon's 'secular acceleration', as this newly-discovered acceleration became known. This book contains the first detailed study of the use of ancient and medieval astronomical observations in order to investigate the moon's secular acceleration from its discovery by Halley to the establishment of the magnitude of the...
The discovery of a gradual acceleration in the moon's mean motion by Edmond Halley in the last decade of the seventeenth century led to a revival of i...
