Table Of ContentHistorical Encyclopedia of Natural and
Mathematical Sciences
Ari Ben-Menahem
Historical Encyclopedia of
Natural and Mathematical
Sciences
Volume 1
ProfessorAriBen-Menahem
WeizmannInstituteofScience
Rehovot76100
Israel
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ISBN:978-3-540-68831-0
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Editorial Assistant and Scientific Advisor
Shahar Ben-Menahem M.Sc., Ph.D.
Department of Physics, Stanford University, USA
To my beloved wife Batia for her support, forbearance and
counsel during the hardship years of creating this treatise;
without her help this feat could not have been accomplished
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To the memory of my dear parents:
Sara-Haya and Moshe
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“Whoever is ignorant of the past remains forever a child. For what is the
worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the
records of history?”
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BCE)
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“He lives doubly, who also lives the past”.
Marcus Valerius Martial (ca 100 CE)
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“Mathematics wasborn and nurtured in acultural environment. Without the
perspective which the cultural background affords, a proper appreciation of
the content and state of present-day mathematics is hardly possible”.
Leonhard Euler (1707–1783)
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“History is the essence of innumerable biographies”.
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)
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“To understand a science it is necessary to know its history”.
Auguste Comte (1799–1857)
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“The history of science is science itself”.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1825
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“Nosubjectlosesmorethanmathematicsbyanyattempttodissociateitfrom
its history”.
J.W.L. Glaisher (1848–1928)
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“Take three hundred men out of history and we should still be living in the
stone age”.
Arthur Keith (1866–1955)
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“The history of science is very largely the history of great men”.
George Sarton, 1927
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“Without theconcepts, methods and resultsfound and developedbyprevious
generations right down to Greek antiquity, one cannot understand the aims
or the achievements of mathematics in the last fifty years”.
Hermann Weyl, 1950 (1885–1955)
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“There is nowhere else to look for the future but in the past”.
James Burke, 1978
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“The genesis of the majority of mathematical theories is obscure and difficult.
Often, today’s presentation of a classical topic, will be much more accessi-
ble and concise than it could even have been when it was developed. Any
scientist’s work, can only be understood within its contemporary scientific
framework”.
Walter K. Bu¨hler
Preface
Many books are published every year on the history of science, but I know of
no comprehensive treatise that blends the essential historical data (chronol-
ogy, biographies, major background political and economical events, etc.) to-
gether with science proper (principles, laws, experiments, observations, theo-
ries, equations, etc.). The present encyclopedic treatise does just that; it tells
the reader not only who did it and when it was done but also precisely what
was done.
The saga of this history of ideas, discovery and invention in the natural
andmathematicalsciences–spanningabout100generationsofgreatthinkers
fromThalestoFeynman–unfoldsinallitsgrandeurbeforetheeyesandmind
of the reader. Whether to professional scientists, students, or unassuming
curious laymen, the doors of this shrine are open, inviting them to browse,
linger and study whatever suits them. I believe that every intelligent person
can understand the development of science when properly presented from its
beginnings; The historical method is the best for introducing scientific facts
and ideas to unprepared minds in a thoroughly understandable manner.
The history of science is more than the arithmetical sum of the histories
of all sciences, for it also explains the interrelations of them all. Indeed, our
division of science into many branches is largely artificial. Like the branches
of a living tree which have no separate existence, but grow together – the
progress of each science is dependent upon the progress of all the others.
The main postulate of science is the unity of nature: nature is one; and
therefore, science is one. Finally, the fact that simultaneous discoveries have
been made by different groups of workers, in different settings, organizations
and nations, demonstrate that mankind is one: one mankind through one
science is unfolding the mysteries of one nature.
It follows that the only rational way to subdivide this history is not ac-
cording to the sciences or countries involved, but only according to time; for
each period of time we have to consider at once the whole of science’s histori-
cal and intellectual development. This calls for the marshaling of all scientific
facts, activities and ideas in a definite order; which means that wemust try to
assign to each of them a date as precise as possible – not just the date of their
birth or their publication, but also that of their actual incorporation into our
knowledge – often a very difficult thing to do, as the reader will not fail to
appreciate. Such work of erudition is the bedrock upon which this history is
built.
Wehavealsoconsideredsomeotherdepartmentsoflifewhichhavebearing
on the evolution of science. These are:
Description:This milestone extensive work combines the essentials of history – biography, chronology, political and economic background – with the observations, theories, principles, laws and equations that constitute the specifics of science. The 5800-page Encyclopedia arises from the conviction that the o
