Group items tagged

Digitization project at Cambridge University

A 10 part series by Professor Marcus du Satuoy, University of Oxford, "argues that mathematics is the driving force behind modern science. Ten fifteen minute podcasts that reveal the personalities behind the calculations from Newton to the present day. How do these masters of abstraction find a role in the real world?"

When the great mathematician Isaac Newton explained the colours of the rainbow with refraction the poet John Keats was horrified. Keats complained (through poetry of course) that a mathematical explanation robbed these marvels of nature of their magic, conquering "all mysteries by rule and line". But as we will see, the mathematical explanation, requiring just the basic geometry of lines and circles, is just as elegant as the rainbows themselves.

by David Berlinski, published January 2013. "In The King of Infinite Space, renowned mathematics writer David Berlinski provides a concise homage to this elusive mathematician and his staggering achievements. Berlinski shows that, for centuries, scientists and thinkers from Copernicus to Newton to Einstein have relied on Euclid's axiomatic system, a method of proof still taught in classrooms around the world. Euclid's use of elemental logic-and the mathematical statements he and others built from it-have dramatically expanded the frontiers of human knowledge. The King of Infinite Space presents a rich, accessible treatment of Euclid and his beautifully simple geometric system, which continues to shape the way we see the world."

16-year old solves particle dynamics theories which eluded traditional computational problem solving

Mount Holyoke physics professor Mark Peterson argues that Galileo's applications of mathematics to Dante's Inferno laid the groundwork for his later discoveries (to be expanded on in a forthcoming book: ""Galileo's Muse: Renaissance Mathematics and the Arts" )