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Popular Mathematics
Popular mathematics is the presentation of mathematics to an aimed general audience. The difference between recreational mathematics and popular mathematics is that recreational mathematics intends to be fun for the mathematical community, and popular mathematics intends to make mathematical knowledge known by the general audience. Some popularization methods are mathematical books which require no mathematical background, and in other cases involves social interaction to raise awareness. There are several reasons to popularize mathematics or promote mathematics, but it is indeed the most difficult academic discipline to popularize. History Research by historians of mathematics has shown the existence of a tradition of popularization dating back at least to the Middle Ages, and we can even consider ''The Sand Reckoner'', in the 3rd century BC, as the first example of a mathematical text intended for a non-mathematician. The popularization of science has accompanied the pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics with the major subdisciplines of number theory, algebra, geometry, and analysis, respectively. There is no general consensus among mathematicians about a common definition for their academic discipline. Most mathematical activity involves the discovery of properties of abstract objects and the use of pure reason to prove them. These objects consist of either abstractions from nature orin modern mathematicsentities that are stipulated to have certain properties, called axioms. A ''proof'' consists of a succession of applications of deductive rules to already established results. These results include previously proved theorems, axioms, andin case of abstraction from naturesome basic properties that are considered true starting points of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Assayer
''The Assayer'' ( it, Il Saggiatore) was a book published in Rome by Galileo Galilei in October 1623 and is generally considered to be one of the pioneering works of the scientific method, first broaching the idea that the book of nature is to be read with mathematical tools rather than those of scholastic philosophy, as generally held at the time. Grassi on the comets The context of the essay was to reply to the treatise ''Libra astronomica ac philosophica'' of 1619 by Orazio Grassi, a Jesuit mathematician at the Collegio Romano, which used the pseudonym of Lotario Sarsi Sigensano. The debate between Galileo and Grassi started in 1618, when the latter published ''Disputatio astronomica de tribus cometis anni MDCXVIII'', in which he asserted that comets are celestial bodies. Grassi adopted Tycho Brahe's Tychonic system, in which the other planets of the Solar System orbit around the Sun, which, in turn, orbits around the Earth. In his ''Disputatio'' Grassi referenced many of Galil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Didactic Method
A didactic method ( el, διδάσκειν ''didáskein'', "to teach") is a teaching method that follows a consistent scientific approach or educational style to present information to students. The didactic method of instruction is often contrasted with dialectics and the Socratic method; the term can also be used to refer to a specific didactic method, as for instance constructivist didactics. Overview Didactics is a theory of teaching, and in a wider sense, a theory and practical application of teaching and learning. In demarcation from "mathetics" (the science of learning), didactics refers only to the science of teaching. This theory might be contrasted with open learning, also known as experiential learning, in which people can learn by themselves, in an unstructured manner (or in an unusually structured manner) as in experiential education, on topics of interest. It can also be contrasted with autodidactic learning, in which one instructs oneself, often from existing b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Journal Des Sçavans
The ''Journal des sçavans'' (later renamed ''Journal des savans'' and then ''Journal des savants,'' lit. ''Journal of the Learned''), established by Denis de Sallo, is the earliest academic journal published in Europe. It is thought to be the earliest published scientific journal. It currently focuses on European history and premodern literature. History The first issue appeared as a twelve-page quarto pamphlet on Monday, 5 January 1665. This was shortly before the first appearance of the ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society,'' on 6 March 1665. The 18th-century French physician and encyclopédiste Louis-Anne La Virotte (1725–1759) was introduced to the journal through the protection of chancellor Henri François d'Aguesseau. Its content originally included obituaries of famous men, church history, the findings of other's in a scientific manner, and legal reports. Natural philosophy was part of its original scope. It is thought to be the first published scientific ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of mathematics. He wrote works on philosophy, theology, ethics, politics, law, history and philology. Leibniz also made major contributions to physics and technology, and anticipated notions that surfaced much later in probability theory, biology, medicine, geology, psychology, linguistics and computer science. In addition, he contributed to the field of library science: while serving as overseer of the Wolfenbüttel library in Germany, he devised a cataloging system that would have served as a guide for many of Europe's largest libraries. Leibniz's contributions to this vast array of subjects were scattered in various learned journals, in tens of thousands of letters and in unpublished manuscripts. He wrote in several languages, primarily in Latin, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marquis De Condorcet
Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis of Condorcet (; 17 September 1743 – 29 March 1794), known as Nicolas de Condorcet, was a French philosopher and mathematician. His ideas, including support for a liberal economy, free and equal public instruction, constitutional government, and equal rights for women and people of all races, have been said to embody the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment, of which he has been called the "last witness," and Enlightenment rationalism. He died in prison after a period of hiding from the French Revolutionary authorities. Early years Condorcet was born in Ribemont (in present-day Aisne), descended from the ancient family of Caritat, who took their title from the town of Condorcet in Dauphiné, of which they were long-time residents. Fatherless at a young age, he was taken care of by his devoutly religious mother who dressed him as a girl till age eight. He was educated at the Jesuit College in Reims and at the ''Collège de Navarre'' i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the greatest mathematicians and physicists and among the most influential scientists of all time. He was a key figure in the philosophical revolution known as the Enlightenment. His book (''Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy''), first published in 1687, established classical mechanics. Newton also made seminal contributions to optics, and shares credit with German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for developing infinitesimal calculus. In the , Newton formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that formed the dominant scientific viewpoint for centuries until it was superseded by the theory of relativity. Newton used his mathematical description of gravity to derive Kepler's laws of planetary motion, account for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Émilie Du Châtelet
Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet (; 17 December 1706 – 10 September 1749) was a French natural philosopher and mathematician from the early 1730s until her death due to complications during childbirth in 1749. Her most recognized achievement is her translation of and commentary on Isaac Newton's 1687 book '' Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica'' containing basic laws of physics. The translation, published posthumously in 1756, is still considered the standard French translation. Her commentary includes a contribution to Newtonian mechanics—the postulate of an additional conservation law for total energy, of which kinetic energy of motion is one element. This led to her conceptualization of energy as such, and to derive its quantitative relationships to the mass and velocity of an object. Her philosophical magnum opus, ''Institutions de Physique'' (Paris, 1740, first edition; ''Foundations of Physics''), circulated widely, generated h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica
(English: ''Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy'') often referred to as simply the (), is a book by Isaac Newton that expounds Newton's laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation. The ''Principia'' is written in Latin and comprises three volumes, and was first published on 5 July 1687. The is considered one of the most important works in the history of science. The French mathematical physicist Alexis Clairaut assessed it in 1747: "The famous book of ''Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy'' marked the epoch of a great revolution in physics. The method followed by its illustrious author Sir Newton ... spread the light of mathematics on a science which up to then had remained in the darkness of conjectures and hypotheses." A more recent assessment has been that while acceptance of Newton's laws was not immediate, by the end of the century after publication in 1687, "no one could deny that" (out of the ) "a science had emerged that, at least in ce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
18th Century
The 18th century lasted from January 1, 1701 ( MDCCI) to December 31, 1800 ( MDCCC). During the 18th century, elements of Enlightenment thinking culminated in the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions. During the century, slave trading and human trafficking expanded across the shores of the Atlantic, while declining in Russia, China, and Korea. Revolutions began to challenge the legitimacy of monarchical and aristocratic power structures, including the structures and beliefs that supported slavery. The Industrial Revolution began during mid-century, leading to radical changes in human society and the Natural environment, environment. Western historians have occasionally defined the 18th century otherwise for the purposes of their work. For example, the "short" 18th century may be defined as 1715–1789, denoting the period of time between the death of Louis XIV, Louis XIV of France and the start of the French Revolution, with an emphasis on directly interconnected ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
D'Alembert
Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert (; ; 16 November 1717 – 29 October 1783) was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist, philosopher, and music theorist. Until 1759 he was, together with Denis Diderot, a co-editor of the ''Encyclopédie''. D'Alembert's formula for obtaining solutions to the wave equation is named after him. The wave equation is sometimes referred to as d'Alembert's equation, and the fundamental theorem of algebra is named after d'Alembert in French. Early years Born in Paris, d'Alembert was the natural son of the writer Claudine Guérin de Tencin and the chevalier Louis-Camus Destouches, an artillery officer. Destouches was abroad at the time of d'Alembert's birth. Days after birth his mother left him on the steps of the church. According to custom, he was named after the patron saint of the church. D'Alembert was placed in an orphanage for foundling children, but his father found him and placed him with the wife of a glazier, Madame Rousseau, with wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Encyclopedia
An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries that are arranged alphabetically by article name or by thematic categories, or else are hyperlinked and searchable. Encyclopedia entries are longer and more detailed than those in most dictionaries. Generally speaking, encyclopedia articles focus on '' factual information'' concerning the subject named in the article's title; this is unlike dictionary entries, which focus on linguistic information about words, such as their etymology, meaning, pronunciation, use, and grammatical forms.Béjoint, Henri (2000)''Modern Lexicography'', pp. 30–31. Oxford University Press. Encyclopedias have existed for around 2,000 years and have evolved considerably during that time as regards language (written in a major international or a verna ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
