The Investigation of Difficult Things

The Investigation of Difficult Things
Author: Peter Michael Harman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 552
Release: 2002-11-07
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780521892667

A collection of twenty original essays on the history of science and mathematics. The topics covered embrace the main themes of Whiteside's scholarly work, emphasising Newtonian topics: mathematics and astronomy to Newton; Newton's manuscripts; Newton's Principia; Newton and eighteenth-century mathematics and physics; after Newton: optics and dynamics. The focus of these themes gives the volume considerable coherence. This volume of essays makes available important original work on Newton and the history of the exact sciences. This volume has been published in honour of D. T. Whiteside, famous for his edition of The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton.

The Newtonian Revolution

The Newtonian Revolution
Author: I. Bernard Cohen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 428
Release: 1980
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780521273800

This volume presents Professor Cohen's original interpretation of the revolution that marked the beginnings of modern science and set Newtonian science as the model for the highest level of achievement in other branches of science. It shows that Newton developed a special kind of relation between abstract mathematical constructs and the physical systems that we observe in the world around us by means of experiment and critical observation. The heart of the radical Newtonian style is the construction on the mind of a mathematical system that has some features in common with the physical world; this system was then modified when the deductions and conclusions drawn from it are tested against the physical universe. Using this system Newton was able to make his revolutionary innovations in celestial mechanics and, ultimately, create a new physics of central forces and the law of universal gravitation. Building on his analysis of Newton's methodology, Professor Cohen explores the fine structure of revolutionary change and scientific creativity in general. This is done by developing the concept of scientific change as a series of transformations of existing ideas. It is shown that such transformation is characteristic of many aspects of the sciences and that the concept of scientific change by transformation suggests a new way of examining the very nature of scientific creativity.

Theory Of Toroidally Confined Plasmas, The (Third Edition)

Theory Of Toroidally Confined Plasmas, The (Third Edition)
Author: Roscoe B White
Publisher: World Scientific Publishing Company
Total Pages: 527
Release: 2013-11-18
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1783263652

This graduate level textbook develops the theory of magnetically confined plasma, with the aim of bringing the reader to the level of current research in the field of thermonuclear fusion. It begins with the basic concepts of magnetic field description, plasma equilibria and stability, and goes on to derive the equations for guiding center particle motion in an equilibrium field. Topics include linear and nonlinear ideal and resistive modes and particle transport. It is of use to workers in the field of fusion both for its wide-ranging account of tokamak physics and as a kind of handbook or formulary.This edition has been extended in a number of ways. The material on mode-particle interactions has been reformulated and much new information added, including methodology for Monte Carlo implementation of mode destabilization. These results give explicit means of carrying out mode destabilization analysis, in particular for the dangerous fishbone mode. A new chapter on cyclotron motion in toroidal geometry has been added, with comparisons of the analysis of resonances using guiding center results. A new chapter on the use of lithium lined walls has been added, a promising means of lowering the complexity and cost of full scale fusion reactors. A section on nonlocal transport has been added, including an analysis of Levy flight simulations of ion transport in the reversed field pinch in Padova, RFX.

Contemporary Newtonian Research

Contemporary Newtonian Research
Author: Z. Bechler
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9400977158

them in his cheat-preface to Copernicus De Revolutionibus, but the main change in their import has been that whereas Osiander defended Copernicus, Mach and Duhem defended science. The modem conception of hypothetico deductive science is, again, geared to defend the respectability of science in much the same way: the physical interpretation, it says, is merely and always hypothetical, and so the scientist is never really committed to it. Hence, when science sheds the physical interpretation off its mathematical skeleton as time and refutation catch up with it, the scientist is not really caught in error, for he never was committed to this interpretation in the first place. This is the apologetic essence of present day, Popper-like, versions of the idea of science as a mathematical-core-cum-interpretational shell. This is also Cohen's view, for it aims to free Newton of any existential commitment to which his theory might allegedly commit him. It will be readily seen that Cohen regards this methodological distinction between mathematics and physics to be the backbone of the Newtonian revolution in science (which is, in its tum, the climax of the whole Scientific Revolution) for a very clear reason: it enables us to argue that Newton could use freely the new concept of centripetal force, even though he did not be lieve in physical action at a distance and could not conceive how such a force could act to produce its effects". ([3] pp.

The Key to Newton's Dynamics

The Key to Newton's Dynamics
Author: J. Bruce Brackenridge
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 316
Release: 1996-02-29
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0520916859

While much has been written on the ramifications of Newton's dynamics, until now the details of Newton's solution were available only to the physics expert. The Key to Newton's Dynamics clearly explains the surprisingly simple analytical structure that underlies the determination of the force necessary to maintain ideal planetary motion. J. Bruce Brackenridge sets the problem in historical and conceptual perspective, showing the physicist's debt to the works of both Descartes and Galileo. He tracks Newton's work on the Kepler problem from its early stages at Cambridge before 1669, through the revival of his interest ten years later, to its fruition in the first three sections of the first edition of the Principia.

The Foundations Of Newtonian Scholarship

The Foundations Of Newtonian Scholarship
Author: Richard H Dalitz
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2000-07-31
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9814494607

Newtonian scholarship has taken great steps forward in the last half-century. The recent completion of critical editions of Newton's mathematical papers and of his scientific correspondence, as well as the publication of the first volume of his optical papers and of variant readings of the Principia in the original Latin, have made most of Newton's scientific work generally available for study and analysis for the first time. This has provided a better understanding of Newton's Principia and Optics especially regarding their origin and interpretation, much of which has remained obscure for several centuries. Some of the new developments and insights are presented in this book by several of the scholars who have made these primary sources accessible, and by others who are using them to elucidate Newton's work. Most of the papers included were presented at the Symposium on the Foundations of Newtonian Scholarship, held at the Royal Society in London in March 1997.

Asymptotic Analysis of Differential Equations

Asymptotic Analysis of Differential Equations
Author: R. B. White
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 430
Release: 2010
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1848166079

"This is a useful volume in which a wide selection of asymptotic techniques is clearly presented in a form suitable for both applied mathematicians and Physicists who require an introduction to asymptotic techniques." --Book Jacket.

Mathematics and Philosophy

Mathematics and Philosophy
Author: Daniel Parrochia
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 358
Release: 2018-05-24
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1119527791

This book, which studies the links between mathematics and philosophy, highlights a reversal. Initially, the (Greek) philosophers were also mathematicians (geometers). Their vision of the world stemmed from their research in this field (rational and irrational numbers, problem of duplicating the cube, trisection of the angle...). Subsequently, mathematicians freed themselves from philosophy (with Analysis, differential Calculus, Algebra, Topology, etc.), but their researches continued to inspire philosophers (Descartes, Leibniz, Hegel, Husserl, etc.). However, from a certain level of complexity, the mathematicians themselves became philosophers (a movement that begins with Wronsky and Clifford, and continues until Grothendieck).

The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton: Volume 1, The Optical Lectures 1670-1672

The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton: Volume 1, The Optical Lectures 1670-1672
Author: Isaac Newton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 650
Release: 1984-03-29
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0521252482

The first volume of a three-volume complete edition of Newton's optical papers contains his Optical Lectures, delivered at Cambridge University between 1670 and 1672. The Lectures is Newton's first major scientific treatise, and consequently it represents a crucial link between his early years of discovery and his mature investigations and publications, such as the Optiks in 1704. It is divided into two parts: the first part devoted to color and the second to refraction. Originally published in 1984, this edition made available the complete text, together with translation and commentary, of both surviving versions of the Lectures, a draft and a vastly expanded revision. Until the time of publication, scholars had to depend on an uncritical text of the revision and an inadequate partial English translation, both published shortly after Newton's death. Professor Shapiro's critical edition has made a great contribution to the study of Newtonian science.

Worlds Out of Nothing

Worlds Out of Nothing
Author: Jeremy Gray
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 390
Release: 2011-02-01
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0857290606

Based on the latest historical research, Worlds Out of Nothing is the first book to provide a course on the history of geometry in the 19th century. Topics covered in the first part of the book are projective geometry, especially the concept of duality, and non-Euclidean geometry. The book then moves on to the study of the singular points of algebraic curves (Plücker’s equations) and their role in resolving a paradox in the theory of duality; to Riemann’s work on differential geometry; and to Beltrami’s role in successfully establishing non-Euclidean geometry as a rigorous mathematical subject. The final part of the book considers how projective geometry rose to prominence, and looks at Poincaré’s ideas about non-Euclidean geometry and their physical and philosophical significance. Three chapters are devoted to writing and assessing work in the history of mathematics, with examples of sample questions in the subject, advice on how to write essays, and comments on what instructors should be looking for.