Related papers: Euler and the German Princess
Although he was the recipient of a Nobel Prize and despite the greatness of his accomplishments, Julian Schwinger is almost an unsung hero of our age . He is relatively unknown to the general population, even though in the physics community…
A brief review of Heisenberg's life and work: participating in the youth movement in the aftermath of World War I, creating quantum mechanics, conflict with "deutsche Physik", involvement in "Hitler's Uranium Project", last illusions.…
Around year 2000 the centenary of Planck's thermal radiation formula awakened interest in the origins of quantum theory, traditionally traced back to the Planck's conference on 14 December 1900 at the Berlin Academy of Sciences. A lot of…
In the period from about 1890 to 1915 an interdisciplinary and unifying research programme known as "cosmical physics" attracted much scientific and public attention. It typically included aspects of the earth sciences (such as magnetic…
In the seminal essay, "On the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the physical sciences," physicist Eugene Wigner poses a fundamental philosophical question concerning the relationship between a physical system and our capacity to…
The letter reminds the historical fact that the known "Lorenz gauge" (or "Lorenz condition/relation") is first mentioned in a written form and named after Ludwig Valentin Lorenz and not by/after Hendrik Antoon Lorentz.
This study examines the potential of using math-themed postage stamps in mathematics lessons as a tool to engage students and integrate the subject with history, art, and culture. Since the first mathematical stamps appeared in the early…
Isaac Newton, in popular imagination the Ur-scientist, was an outstanding humanist scholar. His researches on, among others, ancient philosophy, are thorough and appear to be connected to and fit within his larger philosophical and…
The present work examines and compares the approaches of Jacob Bernoulli and Leonhard Euler to the problem of ship propulsion generated by internal forces. Jacob Bernoulli's analysis, developed in the late 17th century, relies on geometric…
Do We Inhabit The Best O All Possible Worlds? German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz thought so, writing in 1710 that our planet, warts and all, must be the most optimal one imaginable. Leibniz's idea was roundly scorned as unscientific…
In 1917 F. Klein proposed his work on projective geometry to A. Einstein for further developments of general relativity. Klein had a peculiar way to consider the relationship between mathematics and physics, based on his Erlanger Programm…
From its seemingly non-intuitive and puzzling nature, most evident in numerous EPR-like gedankenexperiments to its almost ubiquitous presence in quantum technologies, entanglement is at the heart of modern quantum physics. First introduced…
People typically consider only European mathematics as orthodox, often intentionally or unintentionally overlooking the existence of mathematics from non-European societies. Inspired by Maria Ascher's two well-known papers on sand drawings…
This is an English translation of Euler's article "Principia motus fluidorum" in which the Euler equation (in two three dimensions) has been established for the first time in 1752. The actual publication has been delayed by nine years.…
These lecture notes provide a self-contained introduction to Euler integrals, which are frequently encountered in applications. In particle physics, they arise as Feynman integrals or string amplitudes. Our four selected topics demonstrate…
I present some reminiscences, both personal and scientific, over a lifetime of admiration of, and friendship with, one of the Grandmasters of our subject.
These are lecture notes for a short winter course at the Department of Mathematics, University of Coimbra, Portugal, December 6--8, 2018. The course was part of the 13th International Young Researchers Workshop on Geometry, Mechanics and…
In the year 1900 Max Planck was led by experimental observations to propose a strange formula for the intensity as a function of frequency for light emitted by a cavity. It relied on peculiar properties to be obeyed by the emitters and…
We propose a discussion of angular momentum and its Euler equation, with the aim of giving a short outline of their history. This outline can be useful for teaching purposes too, to amend some problems that students can have in learning…
It is not very well known that the philosopher Karl Popper has been one of the foremost critics of the orthodox interpretation of quantum physics for about six decades. This paper reconstructs in detail most of Popper's activities on…