Related papers: Euler and the German Princess
The art of advertising one's scientific achievements, of which Galileo was an early master, is a trademark of successful modern science. Dedicated believers and mystics of science, such as Kepler, are less popular. Yet, an alleged rigorous…
During the ``long decade'' of transformation of mathematical physics between 1915 and 1930, H. Weyl interacted with physics in two highly productive phases and contributed to it, among others, by his widely read book on {\em Space - Time -…
A complete history of early atomic models would fill volumes, but a reasonably coherent tale of the path from mechanical atoms to the quantum can be told by focusing on the relevant work of three great contributors to atomic physics, in the…
The concept of extremely dense matter at supra-nuclear density was first speculated by L. Landau in the beginning of 1930s when neutron was just discovered. A historical review on these issues not only explains the interaction between micro…
In this note, we discuss a historical point regarding Schr\"odinger's discovery of the famous quantum wave equation in 1926 following de Broglie's fundamental works published in 1923-1925 regarding the introduction of matter waves. Drawing…
In 1924, Einstein received a short manuscript in the mail from the Indian physicist S.N. Bose. He quickly translated Bose's manuscript to German and submitted it to Zeitschrift f\"ur Physik. Within a few weeks, Einstein presented his own…
The University of Strasbourg, fundamentally humanistic since its creation, has a complicated history, being sometimes German, sometimes French through the ages. If one focus, from 1871, on the area of mathematics, we can identify two…
These personal reminiscences of the great Russian mathematician Sergey K. Godunov (1929-2023) arose from a request by his daughter, Ekaterina, to contribute a piece to a book she is writing about her father's life. I was honoured to accept…
Independent of Maxwell, in 1867 the Danish physicist L. V. Lorenz proposed a theory in which he identified light with electrical oscillations propagating in a very poor conductor. Lorenz's electrodynamic theory of light, which formally was…
Four centuries before modern statistical linguistics was born, Leon Battista Alberti (1404--1472) compared the frequency of vowels in Latin poems and orations, making the first quantified observation of a stylistic difference ever. Using a…
Euler derived the differential equations of elastica by the variational method in 1744, but his original derivation has never been properly interpreted or explained in terms of modern mathematics. We elaborate Euler's original derivation of…
This is the translation of Leonhard Euler's paper "De Seriebus divergentibus" written in Latin into English. Leonhard Euler defines and discusses divergent series. He is especially interested in the example $1!-2!+3!-\text{etc.}$ and uses…
In 1923 Louis de Broglie (1892-1987) discovered the material waves and six years later received the Nobel price for this discovery. Apart these well known facts this French physicist nevertheless seems to be forgotten. Details of his life…
Modern atomic and nuclear physics took its start in the early part of the twentieth century, to a large extent based upon experimental investigations of radioactive phenomena. Foremost among the pioneers of the new kind of physics was…
This text tries to give an elementary introduction to the mathematical properties of infinite sets. The aim is to keep the approach as simple as possible. Advanced knowledge of mathematics is not necessary for a proper understanding, and…
The Milanese period in Albert Einstein's life is a key one for the understanding of the development of his scientific questioning. While being a student in Z\"urich from 1896, Einstein returned regularly to Milan to meet his family for the…
It is shown as experiments and theories about the nature of light led to the special theory of relativity. The most important facts for the emergence of the theory proposed by Einstein in 1905 are presented.
This paper presents correspondence between Albert Einstein and the mathematical analyst J. L. B. Cooper on the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paradox of quantum theory published in 1935. Two letters written by Cooper, and the replies from…
Egbert Brieskorn died on July 11, 2013, a few days after his 77th birthday. He was an impressive personality who has left a lasting impression on all who knew him, whether inside or outside of mathematics. Brieskorn was a great…
This paper frames calculus as a global, centuries-long development rather than a subject that began only with Newton and Leibniz. Drawing on ideas from Greek, Indian, Islamic, and later European mathematics, it highlights how concepts like…