The Equations: Icons of Knowledge

Sander Bais, "The Equations: Icons of Knowledge"
Publisher: Harvard University Press | 2005-11-15 | 98 Pages | ISBN: 0674019679 | PDF | 1.4 MB

The mysteries of the physical world speak to us through equations--compact statements about the way nature works, expressed in nature's language, mathematics. In this book by the renowned Dutch physicist Sander Bais, the equations that govern our world unfold in all their formal grace--and their deeper meaning as core symbols of our civilization.

Trying to explain science without equations is like trying to explain art without illustrations. Consequently Bais has produced a book that, unlike any other aimed at nonscientists, delves into the details--historical, biographical, practical, philosophical, and mathematical--of seventeen equations that form the very basis of what we know of the universe today. A mathematical objet d'art in its own right, the book conveys the transcendent excitement and beauty of these icons of knowledge as they reveal and embody the fundamental truths of physical reality.

These are the seventeen equations that represent radical turning points in our understanding--from mechanics to electrodynamics, hydrodynamics to relativity, quantum mechanics to string theory--their meanings revealed through the careful and critical observation of patterns and motions in nature. Mercifully short on dry theoretical elaborations, the book presents these equations as they are--with the information about their variables, history, and applications that allows us to chart their critical function, and their crucial place, in the complex web of modern science.

Reading The Equations, we can hear nature speaking to us in its native language

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Five Equations that Changed the World: The Power and Poetry of Mathematics

Michael Guillen
Five Equations that Changed the World: The Power and Poetry of Mathematics
Hyperion | 1996 | ISBN: 0786881879 | 276 pages | PDF | 101 Mb

Harvard mathematician-physicist Guillen, who explored the human side of mathematics in Bridges to Infinity, now profiles five pioneers whose mathematical equations had far-reaching impacts. This seamless blend of dramatic biography and mathematical documentary links the personal with the scientific. For example, Swiss physicist Daniel Bernoulli, whose hydrodynamic equation led ultimately to the airplane, quit mathematics in disgust with his seemingly pointless career after his jealous father plagiarized his fluid-flow equations. Isaac Newton, whose understanding of gravitational attraction between objects made possible the landing of a human on the moon, was impelled to high achievement partly by an obsessive desire for vindication and revenge against a classroom bully. German physicist Rudolf Clausius, whose wife, Adelheid, died giving birth in 1875, saw life as an ultimately futile contest for survival; his law of entropy, or irreversible energy dissipation, explains a universe in which everything?cells, organisms, galaxies?eventually ages and dies. Also here are British chemist Michael Faraday, father of the electrical age, and Albert Einstein, who rued his decision to encourage Roosevelt to build atomic bombs. A wholly accessible, beautifully written exploration of the potent mathematical imagination.

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In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World

In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World By Ian Stewart
2012 | 352 Pages | ISBN: 0465029736 | EPUB | 4 MB

In In Pursuit of the Unknown, celebrated mathematician Ian Stewart uses a handful of mathematical equations to explore the vitally important connections between math and human progress. We often overlook the historical link between mathematics and technological advances, says Stewart—but this connection is integral to any complete understanding of human history.

Equations are modeled on the patterns we find in the world around us, says Stewart, and it is through equations that we are able to make sense of, and in turn influence, our world. Stewart locates the origins of each equation he presents—from Pythagoras’s Theorem to Newton’s Law of Gravity to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity—within a particular historical moment, elucidating the development of mathematical and philosophical thought necessary for each equation’s discovery. None of these equations emerged in a vacuum, Stewart shows; each drew, in some way, on past equations and the thinking of the day. In turn, all of these equations paved the way for major developments in mathematics, science, philosophy, and technology. Without logarithms (invented in the early 17th century by John Napier and improved by Henry Briggs), scientists would not have been able to calculate the movement of the planets, and mathematicians would not have been able to develop fractal geometry. The Wave Equation is one of the most important equations in physics, and is crucial for engineers studying the vibrations in vehicles and the response of buildings to earthquakes. And the equation at the heart of Information Theory, devised by Claude Shannon, is the basis of digital communication today.

An approachable and informative guide to the equations upon which nearly every aspect of scientific and mathematical understanding depends, In Pursuit of the Unknown is also a reminder that equations have profoundly influenced our thinking and continue to make possible many of the advances that we take for granted.

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