Antiquities of Science

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1  Translating Ancient Minds

1.1  Egyptian Unit Fractions                                                       3

1.2  Remembering Socrates                                                      16

1.3  Platonic Solids and Plato's Theory of Everything             20

1.4  Translating Aristotle                                                          28

1.5  Hipparchus on Compound Statements                              33

1.6  The Ten Means of Ancient Greece                                    46

1.7  Archimedes and the Square Root of 3                               48

1.8  Archimedes and Godfrey                                                   51

1.9  Eccentrics, Deferents, Epicycles, and Equants                  58

2  Wonder En Is Gheen Wonder

2.1  Thomas Harriot and the New World                                 70

2.2  Galileo's Anagrams and the Moons of Mars                     76

2.3  Galileo's Law of Planetary Motion                                    80

2.4  Dialogues                                                                           85

2.5  Prisca Sapientia                                                                 88

2.6  Wonder En Is Gheen Wonder                                            91

2.7  Mercurius in Sole Visus                                                    94

2.8  Hold Your Horses                                                              98

2.9  Fermat's Fallibility                                                           104

3  Harmonia Praestabilita

3.1  Newton's Birth Date and the Anni Mirabiles                  109

3.2  The Fundamental Anagram of Calculus                          114

3.3  Newton’s Cats                                                                 116

3.4  The Most Teachable of Mortals                                      119

3.5  Harmonia Mensurarum                                                    122

3.6  Berkeley and the Infidel                                                  131

3.7  The Portraits of Emilie                                                    132

3.8  Harmonia Praestabilita                                                    140

3.9  The Doctrine of Chance                                                   145

4  In the Shadows

4.1  Nicolas Fatio and the Cause of Gravity                           155

4.2  Lesage's Shadows                                                            165

4.3  Fatio, Lesage, and the Camisards                                    186

4.4  Historical Assessments of the Fatio-Lesage Theory       193

4.5  Omni-Directional Flux                                                    206

5  Metamorphosis

5.1  Saturnday, Sunday, Moonday                                          223

5.2  Gamaliel's Principle                                                         224

5.3  Benevolent Design and the Anthropic Principle             229

5.4  Mayan Numeration                                                          241

5.5  The Metamorphosis of Judas Iscariot                              243

6  More Light

6.1  Franklin’s Magin Squares                                                247

6.2  Zur Farbenlehre                                                               250

6.3  The Longitude of Lewis and Clark                                  259

6.4  Gauss's Children and Adam's Gold                                 261

6.5  Galois's Analysis of Analysis                                          265

6.6  The Thought of a Thought                                               267

6.7  Spiritualism and Electromagnetism                                 287

6.8  Dodgson’s Paradox                                                          293

6.9  Did Poincare Anticipate Godel?                                      295

7  Casting Out Nines

7.1  Feynman's Ants                                                               302

7.2  The Dullness of 1729                                                       313

7.3  Casting Out Nines                                                            315

7.4  Is Knowledge Cumulative?                                             319

7.5  Dialogue On Mathematical and Physical Knowledge     321

7.6  Death's Dual: Life Be Not Proud                                     332

7.7  White Ravens and Black Swans                                      335

8  Never See So Much

8.1  Electoral Draws                                                               340

8.2  Bertelsen's Number                                                          343

8.3  Reconstructing Brouwer                                                  345

8.4  Lucretius on the Equivalence Principle                           353

8.5  Accidental Melodies                                                        353

8.6  Efficient and Final Causes                                               359

8.7  World's Oldest Man Dies                                                 362