Infinitesimal: How a Dangerous Mathematical Theory Shaped the Modern World
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.31 (845 Votes) |
| Asin | : | B00M4LU9UY |
| Format Type | : | |
| Number of Pages | : | 525 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-01-13 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Pulsing with drama and excitement, Infinitesimal celebrates the spirit of discovery, innovation, and intellectual achievement - and it will forever change the way you look at a simple line. From the imperial cities of Germany to the green hills of Surrey, from the papal palace in Rome to the halls of the Royal Society of London, Alexander demonstrates how a disagreement over a mathematical concept became a contest over the heavens and the Earth. Philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians across Europe embraced infinitesimals as the key to scientific progress, freedom of thought, and a more tolerant society. The legitimacy of popes and kings, as well as our beliefs in human liberty and progressive science, were at stake - the soul of the modern world hinged on the infinitesimal.. As Alexander reveals, it wasn't long before the two camps set off on a war that pitted Europe's forces of hierarchy and order against those of pluralism and change. On August 10, 1632, five men in flowing black robes convened in a somber Roman palazzo to pass judgment on a deceptively simple proposition: that a continuous line is composed of distinct and infinitely tiny parts. In Infinitesimal, the award-winning historian Amir Alexander exposes the deep-seated reasons behind the rulings of the Jesui
H. J. Spencer PhD, renegade-Physicist said A Deeply Divisive Debate about Reality. This book is much more than an esoteric history of an area of mathematics. It tracks the ancient rivalry between ‘rationalists’ and ‘empiricists’. The dominant rationalists have always believed that human minds (at least those possessed by educated intellectuals) are capable of understanding the world purely by thought alone. The empiri. Fascinating but overdrawn I like the book, though I found it a bit overlong and sometimes redundant. Further, I suspect that the author may have the cart before the horse in thinking that failure to study infinitesimals stultified Italy, rather than the other way round. Also, I sometimes found the going hard because the author failed to distinguish between an infinitesimal and an indiv. Interesting, fascinating, enlightening. Isn't that what we're all looking for? Interesting, fascinating, enlightening. Infinitesimal introduced me to concepts and characters I had never encountered and showed me how a long forgotten series of catfights among snooty-nosed intellectuals led us to the world we live in. The closest equivalent concept I have at hand is the struggle between Keynesian and Hayekian economics.At the same time, I