Related papers: MacLaurin and Morality
The mathematical analysis was conceived in XVII century in Newton and Leibniz works. The problem of logical rigor in definitions was considered by Arnauld and Nicole in "Logique ou l'art de penser". They were the first, who distinguished…
Almost half a century before Einstein expounded his general theory of relativity, the English mathematician William Kingdon Clifford argued that space might not be Euclidean and proposed that matter is nothing but a small distortion in that…
No woman of science has lived a more controversial life nor possessed a most contrasting character than Gabrielle Emilie Le Tonnelier, Marquise du Chatelet. One one hand, she was a woman of great intelligence, a philosopher of science, a…
Over a century ago, Einstein formulated a precise mathematical model for describing Brownian motion. While this model adequately explains the diffusion of micron-sized particles in fluids, its limitations become apparent when applied to…
This paper is proposing some physics problems from a book, De Motu Gravium Naturaliter Descendentium, written by Evangelista Torricelli, with the aim of showing how physics was taught in a university, that of Pisa, in the 17th century.
In 1687 Isaac Newton published PHILOSOPHI\AE \ NATURALIS PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA, where the classical analytic dynamics was formulated. But Newton also formulated a discrete dynamics, which is the central difference algorithm, known as the…
This is a short metaphysical fable accentuating the conceptual difficulties involved, and succinctly criticizing the approaches pursued since the inception of quantum theory, in dealing with what is known collectively as `the measurement…
Transcript of G.J. Chaitin's 2 March 2000 Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science Distinguished Lecture. The notion of randomness is taken from physics and applied to pure mathematics in order to shed light on the…
In his autobiographic essay written in 1999, ``From logic to computer science and back'', Martin David Davis (3/8/1928--1/1/2023) indicated that he viewed himself as a logician \emph{and} a computer scientist. He expanded the essay in 2016…
What was the origin of modern economic growth? Joel Mokyr has argued that self-sustained modern economic growth originated from a feedback loop between propositional (theoretical) and prescriptive (applied) knowledge, which turned positive…
A paper of Thomas Young (1773-1829) on the behavior of streams of air makes a good starting point for discussing the not always fair, sometimes serendipitous, association of a physical phenomenon with its discoverer. In a didactic context,…
Economic growth and the growth of human population in the past 2,000,000 years are extensively examined. Data are found to be in a clear contradiction of the currently accepted explanations of the mechanism of growth, which revolve around…
The 75th anniversary of Turing's seminal paper and his centennial year anniversary occur in 2011 and 2012, respectively. It is natural to review and assess Turing's contributions in diverse fields in the light of new developments that his…
Computer simulation of the time evolution in a classical system is a standard numerical method, used in numerous scientific articles in Natural Science. Almost all the simulations are performed by discrete Molecular Dynamics (MD). The…
Maxwells Demon is a mythical being, first described by the physicist James Clerk Maxwell (although named Maxwells Demon by Lord Kelvin). Maxwell used it in a thought experiment to potentially violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics by…
An edited version is given of the text of G\"odel's unpublished manuscript of the notes for a course in basic logic he delivered at the University of Notre Dame in 1939. G\"odel's notes deal with what is today considered as important…
Cooperation is a phenomenon that has been widely studied across many different disciplines. In the field of computer science, the modularity and robustness of multi-agent systems offer significant practical advantages over individual…
This paper takes James David Forbes' Encyclopaedia Britannica entry, Dissertation Sixth, as a lens to examine physics as a cognitive, practical, and social, enterprise. Forbes wrote this survey of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century…
The year 2012 will be the fourth centennial year of the Jesuit Christopher Clavius (1535-1612), known as the Euclid of XVI century and the collaborator of the Pope Gregory XIII for the calendar reformation. In the occasion of the year of…
Today's 'theory of mind' (ToM) concept is rooted in the distinction of nineteenth century philosopher William Clifford between 'objects' that can be directly perceived, and 'ejects,' such as the mind of another person, which are inferred…