Mathematical Geography in the Eighteenth Century: Euler, Lagrange and Lambert

Mathematical Geography in the Eighteenth Century: Euler, Lagrange and Lambert
Author: Renzo Caddeo
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 437
Release: 2022-10-31
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 3031095707

This volume presents the beautiful memoirs of Euler, Lagrange and Lambert on geography, translated into English and put into perspective through explanatory and historical essays as well as commentaries and mathematical notes. These works had a major impact on the development of the differential geometry of surfaces and they deserve to be studied, not only as historical documents, but most of all as a rich source of ideas.

Minerva Meets Vulcan: Scientific and Technological Literature – 1450–1750

Minerva Meets Vulcan: Scientific and Technological Literature – 1450–1750
Author: Wolfgang Lefèvre
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 198
Release: 2021-06-16
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3030730859

This book offers a comprehensive study and account of the co-evolution of technological and scientific literature in the early modern period (1450-1750). It examines the various relationships of these literatures in six areas of knowledge – Architecture, Chemistry, Gunnery, Mechanical Engineering, Mining, and Practical Mathematics – which represent the main types of advanced technological and scientific knowledge of the era. These six fields of technologically advanced knowledge and their interrelations and interactions with learned knowledge are investigated and discussed through a specific lens: by focusing on the technological literature. Among present-day historians of science, it hardly remains controversial that contact and exchange between educated and practical knowledge played a significant role in the development of the natural sciences and technology in early modern Europe. Several paths for such exchange arose from the late Middle Ages onward due to the formation of an economy of knowledge that fostered contacts and exchange between the two worlds. How can this development be adequately described and how, on the basis of such a description, can the significance of this process for the early modern history of knowledge in the West be assessed? These are the overarching questions this book tries to answer. There exists a considerable amount of literature concerning several stations and events in the course of this long development process as well as its various aspects. As meritorious and indispensable as many of these studies are, none of them tried to portray this process as a whole with its most essential branches. What is more, many of them implicitly or explicitly took physics as a model of science, and thus highlighted mechanics and mechanical engineering as the model of all interrelations of practical and learned knowledge. By contrast, this book aims at a more complete portrait of the early modern interrelations and interactions between learned and practical knowledge. It tries to convey a new idea of the variety and disunity of these relations by discussing and comparing altogether six widely different fields of knowledge and practice. The targeted audience of this book is first of all the historians of science and technology. As one of the peer reviewers suggested – the book could very well become a textbook used for teaching the history of science and technology at universities. Furthermore, since the book addresses fundamental aspects of the significance emergence and development of modern science has for the self-image of the West, it can be expected that it will attract the attention and interest of a wider readership than professional historians.

A History of Science Technology and Philosophy in the 18th Century

A History of Science Technology and Philosophy in the 18th Century
Author: Abraham Wolf
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 678
Release: 2019-04-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 0429594968

Published in 1938: The new volume presents a full and profusely illustrated account of progress made during the eighteenth century in Mathematics, Mechanics, Astronomy, Physics, Meteorology, Geography, Chemistry, Biology, Medicine, Psychology, Demography, Economics, Philosophy, and Technology.

Portraits of the Earth

Portraits of the Earth
Author: Timothy G. Feeman
Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.
Total Pages: 141
Release: 2002
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0821832557

``Every map is a tool, a product of human effort and creativity, that represents some aspects of our world or universe ... [This] course was powered by the belief that by exploring the mathematical ideas involved in creating and analyzing maps, students would see how mathematics could help them to understand and explain their world.'' -from the Preface Portraits of the Earth exemplifies the AMS's mission to bring the power and vitality of mathematical thought to the nonexpert. It isdesigned to teach students to think logically and to analyze the technical information that they so readily encounter every day. Maps are exciting, visual tools that we encounter on a daily basis: from street maps to maps of the world accompanying news stories to geologic maps depicting theunderground structure of the earth. This book explores the mathematical ideas involved in creating and analyzing maps, a topic that is rarely discussed in undergraduate courses. It is the first modern book to present the famous problem of mapping the earth in a style that is highly readable and mathematically accessible to most students. Feeman's writing is inviting to the novice, yet also interesting to readers with more mathematical experience. Through the visual context of maps andmapmaking, students will see how contemporary mathematics can help them to understand and explain the world. Topics explored are the shape and size of the earth, basic spherical geometry, and why one can't make a perfect flat map of the planet. The author discusses different attributes that maps can have anddetermines mathematically how to design maps that have the desired features. The distortions that arise in making world maps are quantitatively analyzed. There is an in-depth discussion on the design of numerous map projections-both historical and contemporary-as well as conformal and equal-area maps. Feeman looks at how basic map designs can be modified to produce maps with any center, and he indicates how to generalize methods to produce maps of arbitrary surfaces of revolution. Also includedare end-of-chapter exercises and laboratory projects. Particularly interesting is a chapter that explains how to use MapleR add-on software to make maps from geographic data points. This book would make an excellent text for a basic undergraduate mathematics or geography course and would beespecially appealing to the teacher who is interested in exciting visual applications in the classroom. It would also serve nicely as supplementary reading for a course in calculus, linear algebra, or differential geometry. Prerequisites include a solid grasp of trigonometry and basic calculus. RWaterloo Maple, Inc., Ontario, Canada.

Menelaus' ›Spherics‹

Menelaus' ›Spherics‹
Author: Roshdi Rashed
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 888
Release: 2017-10-23
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3110571420

Despite its importance in the history of Ancient science, Menelaus’ Spherics is still by and large unknown. This treatise, which lies at the foundation of spherical geometry, is lost in Greek but has been preserved in its Arabic versions. The reader will find here, for the first time edited and translated into English, the essentials of this tradition, namely: a fragment of an early Arabic translation and the first Arabic redaction of the Spherics composed by al-Māhānī /al-Harawī, together with a historical and mathematical study of Menelaus’ treatise. With this book, a new and important part of the Greek and Arabic legacy to the history of mathematics comes to light. This book will be an indispensable acquisition for any reader interested in the history of Ancient geometry and science and, more generally, in Greek and Arabic science and culture.