1,720,980 research outputs found
Charles Hutton (1737â1823): calendar of correspondence
No full textData generated as part of biographical research project on Charles Hutton (1737â1823) carried out during 2014â2016
‘The Admonitions of a Good-Natured Reader’: marks of use in Georgian mathematical textbooks
Get PDFMathematical books were printed in Georgian Britain in large numbers, and they survive in large numbers. Many of the surviving copies bear evidence for the ways in which the books were used during the eighteenth century: for some, early owners can be identified; for some, detailed patterns of reading or other types of engagement can be reconstructed. This chapter mines the evidence for what it can tell about the readers or readership of mathematical books in the period. Elementary books on arithmetic, geometry, and mathematics generally are the most heavily marked. Those books intended for use in schools – the three arithmetic primers, Fisher and Ward, and Whiston’s Euclid – have together a mean rate of marking distinctly higher than the average. Practical books teaching practical mathematical techniques – measuring, surveying, fortification, navigation, and accounting – were often similar in size, price, and the quality of print and paper to the longer primers like those of Walkingame or Fisher
Introduction
No full textThis introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book addresses the questions from a variety of perspectives, deploying evidence ranging from micro-historical studies of specific artefacts to wider-ranging surveys of milieus, corpora, and libraries. It examines the reading of learned and classic mathematical texts, including those of Euclid and Tycho. The book considers the reading of mathematical diagrams in a broader perspective, discussing the changes in the nature and function of diagrams in Euclidean print which took place across the early modern period. It also addresses mathematics in the English universities in the seventeenth century. The book offers a close and insightful reading of the several layers of annotation on the copy found in the Whipple Museum in Cambridge of Leonard Digges’ Pantometria, a text which itself is characterized by a multi-layered, multi-author texture and a plurality of voices
Negotiating the Principia: the failure of Newton's arguments to persuade his readers, 1684-94
Get PDFWhen Isaac Newton’s 'Principia Mathematica' was published in the summer of 1687, it met with immediate acclaim. Through a close examination of contemporary reading notes, this thesis aims to establish the extent to which that acclaim was the result of his peers’ assent to the arguments contained in the book.
It will demonstrate that, so far as can be reliably inferred from the extant documentary evidence, early readers were generally not persuaded by the demonstrations in the 'Principia'. Newton’s peers commonly didn’t scrutinise the arguments in his book; when they did scrutinise them, they commonly didn’t understand them; and when they did understand them, they commonly didn’t agree with them. They frequently disputed the composition of his proofs, the validity of his methodology, and the articulation of his foundational concepts. When circumstances allowed, they communicated these misgivings back to Newton, who often altered his text in response, re-working, re-phrasing and re-structuring his demonstrations. They questioned both the formulation of his method of first and last ratios and his mathematisation of force, and none of the readers for whom there is reliable evidence assented to the entirety of Newton’s proof of the inverse-square law. To the extent that they were persuaded by the correctness of Newton’s conclusions, it was either because they were successfully able to reconstruct his arguments within their pre-existing conceptual frameworks; or because they held face-to-face conversations with the author in which they were able to query, contest and negotiate the composition of his text.
In other words, the book was very ineffective at persuading readers of the validity of the arguments it contained. This means that the acclaim 'Principia' received at the moment of publication was unwarranted: it must have had some cause other than readers’ assent to its demonstrations
The "Epitome of Intellectual Sagacity": Biographical Treatments of Newton as a Mathematician
No full textThe Quarrel on the Invention of the Calculus in Jean E. Montucla and Joseph Jérôme de Lalande, Histoire des Mathématiques (1758/1799–1802)
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Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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