Download or read book Correspondence and Papers of Edmond Halley written by Edmond Halley and published by . This book was released on 1932 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century written by and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Chasing Venus written by Andrea Wulf and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-05-01 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “thrilling adventure story" (San Francisco Chronicle) that brings to life the astronomers who in the 1700s embarked upon a quest to calculate the size of the solar system, and paints a vivid portrait of the collaborations, rivalries, and volatile international politics that hindered them at every turn. • From the author of Magnificent Rebels and New York Times bestseller The Invention of Nature. On June 6, 1761, the world paused to observe a momentous occasion: the first transit of Venus between the Earth and the Sun in more than a century. Through that observation, astronomers could calculate the size of the solar system—but only if they could compile data from many different points of the globe, all recorded during the short period of the transit. Overcoming incredible odds and political strife, astronomers from Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Sweden, and the American colonies set up observatories in the remotest corners of the world, only to be thwarted by unpredictable weather and warring armies. Fortunately, transits of Venus occur in pairs; eight years later, they would have another opportunity to succeed. Thanks to these scientists, neither our conception of the universe nor the nature of scientific research would ever be the same.

Download or read book Edmond Halley written by David K. Love and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023-11-15 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edmond Halley is known far and wide thanks largely to the comet bearing his name, the return of which he predicted in 1705. While that discovery would be enough to make the career of any scientist, Halley’s massive contributions to the fields of astronomy, navigation, geophysics, mathematics, engineering, and actuarial science as a young man and eventually as Astronomer Royal are mostly overlooked. Edmond Halley: The Many Discoveries of the Most Curious Astronomer Royal is a revelatory and deeply researched biography of a man whose defining achievement isn’t even the half of it. A jack-of-all-trades when it came to scientific reasoning, an all-around academic and workaholic who couldn’t leave well enough alone, Halley was amazingly productive and prolific. He was behind some of the most groundbreaking discoveries in human history: It was Halley who was the first to accurately plot the stars of the southern hemisphere. He published Isaac Newton’s Principia, arguably the most important scientific text ever written; translated the works of ancient Greek mathematician Apollonius; captained the ship Paramore on a scientific expedition to plot the Earth’s magnetic fields; was the first to calculate mortality annuities, creating the foundation for actuarial science; made improvements to the diving bell; surveyed the tides of the English Channel; and began the movement to accurately measure the distance between the Earth and Sun, unlocking the key to determining the distances to the nearest stars. In this incisive and perceptive biography, author David K. Love reveals the boundless mind and endless curiosity of Edmond Halley firmly cementing the legacy of the second Astronomer Royal among the first-rate scientists of his time.

Download or read book The Newton Papers written by Sarah Dry and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-11 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Isaac Newton died in 1727 without a will, he left behind a wealth of papers that, when examined, gave his followers and his family a deep sense of unease. Some of what they contained was wildly heretical and alchemically obsessed, hinting at a Newton altogether stranger and less palatable than the one enshrined in Westminster Abbey as the paragon of English rationality. These manuscripts had the potential to undermine not merely Newton's reputation, but that of the scientific method he embodied. They were immediately suppressed as "unfit to be printed," and, aside from brief, troubling glimpses spread across centuries, the papers would remain hidden from sight for more than seven generations. In The Newton Papers, Sarah Dry illuminates the tangled history of these private writings over the course of nearly three hundred years, from the long span of Newton's own life into the present day. The writings, on subjects ranging from secret alchemical formulas to impassioned rejections of the Holy Trinity, would eventually come to light as they moved through the hands of relatives, collectors, and scholars. The story of their disappearance, dispersal, and rediscovery is populated by a diverse cast of characters who pursued and possessed the papers, from economist John Maynard Keynes to controversial Jewish Biblical scholar Abraham Yahuda. Dry's captivating narrative moves between these varied personalities, depicting how, as they chased the image of Newton through the thickets of his various obsessions, these men became obsessed themselves with the allure of defining the "true" Newton. Dry skillfully accounts for the ways with which Newton's pursuers have approached his papers over centuries. Ultimately, The Newton Papers shows how Newton has been made and re-made throughout history by those seeking to reconcile the cosmic contradictions of an extraordinarily complex man.

Download or read book The Early History of Financial Economics 1478 1776 written by Geoffrey Poitras and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2000 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poitras (finance, Simon Fraser University) provides an account of the early development of financial economics and presents a foundation for the study of modern financial economics. The book chronicles the development of early financial economics, from the appearance of the first printed commercial arithmetic in 1478 to the publication of The Wealth of Nations in 1776. The origins of the subject are traced back to the commercial arithmetic of the Renaissance reckoning schools. The contributions of de Moivre, Halley, and Stevin are also discussed. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

Download or read book Oxford s Savilian Professors of Geometry written by Robin Wilson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-10 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Savilian Professorships in Geometry and Astronomy at Oxford University were founded in 1619 by Sir Henry Savile, distinguished scholar and Warden of Merton College. The Geometry chair, in particular, is the earliest University-based mathematics professorship in England, predating the first Cambridge equivalent by about sixty years. To celebrate the 400th anniversary of the founding of the geometry chair, a meeting was held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, and the talks presented at this meeting have formed the basis for this fully edited and lavishly illustrated book, which outlines the first 400 years of Oxford's Savilian Professors of Geometry. Starting with Henry Briggs, the co-inventor of logarithms, this volume proceeds via such figures as John Wallis, a founder member of the Royal Society, and Edmond Halley, via the 19th-century figures of Stephen Rigaud, Baden Powell, Henry Smith, and James Joseph Sylvester, to the 20th century and the present day. Oxford's Savilian Professors of Geometry: The First 400 Years assumes no mathematical background, and should therefore appeal to the interested general reader with an interest in mathematics and the sciences. It should also be of interest to anyone interested in the history of mathematics or of the development of Oxford and its namesake university. To all of these audiences it offers portraits of mathematicians at work and an accessible exposition of historical mathematics in the context of its times.

Download or read book A History of Scientific Journals written by Aileen Fyfe and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2022-10-03 with total page 666 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern scientific research has changed so much since Isaac Newton’s day: it is more professional, collaborative and international, with more complicated equipment and a more diverse community of researchers. Yet the use of scientific journals to report, share and store results is a thread that runs through the history of science from Newton’s day to ours. Scientific journals are now central to academic research and careers. Their editorial and peer-review processes act as a check on new claims and findings, and researchers build their careers on the list of journal articles they have published. The journal that reported Newton’s optical experiments still exists. First published in 1665, and now fully digital, the Philosophical Transactions has carried papers by Charles Darwin, Dorothy Hodgkin and Stephen Hawking. It is now one of eleven journals published by the Royal Society of London. Unrivalled insights from the Royal Society’s comprehensive archives have enabled the authors to investigate more than 350 years of scientific journal publishing. The editorial management, business practices and financial difficulties of the Philosophical Transactions and its sibling Proceedings reveal the meaning and purpose of journals in a changing scientific community. At a time when we are surrounded by calls to reform the academic publishing system, it has never been more urgent that we understand its history.

Download or read book The Life and Work of James Bradley written by John Fisher and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-03-08 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Life and Work of James Bradley: The New Foundations of 18th Century Astronomy is the first major work on the life and achievements of James Bradley for 190 years. This book offers a new perspective and new interpretations of previously published materials, together with various insights about recently researched sources. This book is a complete account of the life and work of Bradley as discerned from surviving documents of his working archive, as well as other documents and records. In addition, it offers a new interpretation of Bradley's work as an astronomer, not merely from his observations of Jupiter and Saturn and their satellites and annual aberration and the nutation of the Earth's axis, but also his corroborative work with pendulums and other horological work with George Graham. It also explores the little amount documented about his private life including a degree of speculation about his personal relationships. This work on 18th century astronomy is intended for students of the history of science, astronomy and 18th century English society, and for scholars seeking new lines of inquiry. It contains an extensive bibliography and a detailed chronology, both of which offer support for further reading and research.

Download or read book Authorship in the Long Eighteenth Century written by Dustin Griffin and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2013-12-11 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book deals with changing conditions and conceptions of authorship in the long eighteenth century, a period often said to have witnessed the birth of the modern author. It focuses not on authorial self-presentation or self-revelation but on an author’s interactions with booksellers, collaborators, rivals, correspondents, patrons, and audiences. Challenging older accounts of the development of authorship in the period as well as newer claims about the “public sphere” and the “professional writer,” it engages with recent work on print culture and the history of the book. Methodologically eclectic, it moves from close readings to strategic contextualization. The book is organized both chronologically and topically. Early chapters deal with writers – notably Milton and Dryden – at the beginning of the long eighteenth century, and later chapters focus more on writers — among them Johnson, Gray, and Gibbon — toward its end. Looking beyond the traditional canon, it considers a number of little-known or little-studied writers, including Richard Bentley, Thomas Birch, William Oldys, James Ralph, and Thomas Ruddiman. Some of the essays are organized around a single writer, but most deal with a broad topic – literary collaboration, literary careers, the republic of letters, the alleged rise of the “professional writer,” and the rather different figure of the “author by profession.” Published by University of Delaware Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

Download or read book Comets Popular Culture and the Birth of Modern Cosmology written by Sara Schechner and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-09 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a lively investigation into the boundaries between popular culture and early-modern science, Sara Schechner presents a case study that challenges the view that rationalism was at odds with popular belief in the development of scientific theories. Schechner Genuth delineates the evolution of people's understanding of comets, showing that until the seventeenth century, all members of society dreaded comets as heaven-sent portents of plague, flood, civil disorder, and other calamities. Although these beliefs became spurned as "vulgar superstitions" by the elite before the end of the century, she shows that they were nonetheless absorbed into the science of Newton and Halley, contributing to their theories in subtle yet profound ways. Schechner weaves together many strands of thought: views of comets as signs and causes of social and physical changes; vigilance toward monsters and prodigies as indicators of God's will; Christian eschatology; scientific interpretations of Scripture; astrological prognostication and political propaganda; and celestial mechanics and astrophysics. This exploration of the interplay between high and low beliefs about nature leads to the conclusion that popular and long-held views of comets as divine signs were not overturned by astronomical discoveries. Indeed, they became part of the foundation on which modern cosmology was built.

Download or read book Statisticians of the Centuries written by C.C. Heyde and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-12-01 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by leading statisticians and probabilists, this volume consists of 104 biographical articles on eminent contributors to statistical and probabilistic ideas born prior to the 20th Century. Among the statisticians covered are Fermat, Pascal, Huygens, Neumann, Bernoulli, Bayes, Laplace, Legendre, Gauss, Poisson, Pareto, Markov, Bachelier, Borel, and many more.

Download or read book The Scientific Intellectual written by Lewis S. Feuer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-12-16 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The birth of modern science was linked to the rise in Western Europe of a new sensibility, that of the scientific intellectual. Such a person was no more technician, looking at science as just a job to be done, but one for whom the scientific stand-point is a philosophy in the fullest sense. In The Scientific Intellectual, Lewis S. Feuer traces the evolution of this new human type, seeking to define what ethic inspired him and the underlying emotions that created him.Under the influence of Max Weber, the rise of the scientific spirit has been viewed by sociologists as an offspring of the Protestant revolution, with its asceticism and sense of guilt acting as causative agents in the rise of capitalism and the growth of the scientific movement. Feuer takes strong issue with this view, pointing out how it is at odds with what we know of the psychological conditions of modern societies making for human curiosity and its expression in the observation of and experiment with nature.Feuer shows that wherever a scientific movement has begun, it has been based on emotions that issue in what might be called a hedonist-libertarian ethic. The scientific intellectual was a person for whom science was a 'new philosophy,' a third force rising above religious and political hatreds, seeking in the world of nature liberated vision, a intending to use and enjoy its knowledge. In his new introduction to this brilliantly readable volume, Professor Feuer reviews the book's critical reception and expands the scope of the original edition to include fascinating discussions of Francis Bacon, Thomas Edison, Charles Darwin, Thomas Hardy, and others. The Scientific Intellectual will be of interest to scientists and intellectual historians.

Download or read book A Man of the Enlightenment in Eighteenth century India written by Claude Martin (major).) and published by Orient Blackswan. This book was released on 2003 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among All The Colourful Figures Of Eighteenth Century India, Claude Martin (1735-1800) Stands Out As One Of The Most Extraodinary. To Read His Letters, Collected Here For The First Time, Is To Enter The Mind Of A Man Of The Enlightenment, French By Birth, But Who Served The British For Most Of His Adult Life.

Download or read book Eighteenth Century Ireland New Gill History of Ireland 4 written by Ian McBride and published by Gill & Macmillan Ltd. This book was released on 2009-10-02 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The eighteenth century is in many ways the most problematic era in Irish history. Traditionally, the years from 1700 to 1775 have been short-changed by historians, who have concentrated overwhelmingly on the last quarter of the period. Professor Ian McBride's survey, the fourth in the New Gill History of Ireland series, seeks to correct that balance. At the same time it provides an accessible and fresh account of the bloody rebellion of 1798, the subject of so much controversy. The eighteenth century was the heyday of the Protestant Ascendancy. Professor McBride explores the mental world of Protestant patriots from Molyneux and Swift to Grattan and Tone. Uniquely, however, McBride also offers a history of the eighteenth century in which Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter all receive due attention. One of the greatest advances in recent historiography has been the recovery of Catholic attitudes during the zenith of the Protestant Ascendancy. Professor McBride's Eighteenth-Century Ireland insists on the continuity of Catholic politics and traditions throughout the century so that the nationalist explosion in the 1790s appears not as a sudden earthquake, but as the culmination of long-standing religious and social tensions. McBride also suggests a new interpretation of the penal laws, in which themes of religious persecution and toleration are situated in their European context. This holistic survey cuts through the clichés and lazy thinking that have characterised our understanding of the eighteenth century. It sets a template for future understanding of that time. Eighteenth-Century Ireland: Table of Contents Introduction Part I. Horizons - English Difficulties and Irish Opportunities - The Irish Enlightenment and its Enemies - Ireland and the Ancien Régime Part II. The Penal Era: Religion and Society - King William's Wars - What Were the Penal Laws For? - How Catholic Ireland Survived - Bishops, Priests and People Part III The Ascendancy and its World - Ascendancy Ireland: Conflict and Consent - Queen Sive and Captain Right: Agrarian Rebellion Part IV. The Age of Revolutions - The Patriot Soldier - A Brotherhood of Affection - 1798

Download or read book The Compleat Plattmaker written by Norman J. W. Thrower and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-11-10 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1978.

Download or read book Jean Jacques Dortous de Mairan and the Geneva Connection written by Ellen McNiven Hine and published by Oxford : Voltaire Foundation. This book was released on 1996 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study illustrates the significance of Jean-Jacques Dortous de Mairan's networking in the spread of Enlightenment thought. It focuses primarily on the unpublished correspondence between Mairan and the Geneva scientists, Firmin Abauzit, Gabriel Cramer, Jean Jallabert and Charles Bonnet. Mairan was an assiduous correspondent whose letters reveal the progress of scientific thought in the first three quarters of the eighteenth century. Despite the high regard in which of his contemporaries, he has been, until recently, relatively neglected by Enlightenment scholars. This is the first full-length study devoted to Mairan's relations with scientists in other countries, to the process of cross-fertilisation in the production of scientific knowledge, and to his considerable influence on the development of scientific thought on key issues. The topics covered in the letters range from the Shape of the Earth and vis vivacontroversies and the medical powers of electricity, to the nature of the Seichesin the Lac du Léman and the origin of monsters. One of the major interests of the correspondence is Mairan's obvious fascination with Newton. Neglect of his contribution to the history of ideas can be partly explained by the fact that he was unfairly considered a 'last-ditch' Cartesian in a triumphantly Newtonian world. The detailed analysis of the letters in this study amply shows a constant preoccupation with both the Opticks and the Principiaand a fairly sophisticated understanding of scientific method. The letters abound in references to other scientists, such as the Bernoullis, Nollet, Dufay and Maupertuis. They provide an exciting, unguarded and 'behind-the-scenes' view of scientific developments before they were finalised and appeared in published works. It is particularly revealing, therefore, to compare the letters to Mairan's contributions to the Mémoires de l'Académie royale des sciences, his early dissertations, and his mature works. Mairan's unpublished correspondence with Geneva scientists is a treasure-house of information on personalities, ideas and controversies of crucial importance to the international scientific community from 1717 to 1769.