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This textbook analyzes a number of texts in “conformal translation,” that is, a translation in which the same Babylonian term is always translated in the same way and, more importantly, in which different terms are always translated differently. Appendixes are provided for readers who are familiar with basic Assyriology but otherwise philological details are avoided. All of these texts are from the second half of the Old Babylonian period, that is, 1800–1600 BCE. It is indeed during this period that the “algebraic” discipline, and Babylonian mathematics in general, culminates. Even though a few texts from the late period show some similarities with what comes from the Old Babylonian period, they are but remnants. Beyond analyzing texts, the book gives a general characterization of the kind of mathematics involved, and locates it within the context of the Old Babylonian scribe school and its particular culture. Finally, it describes the origin of the discipline and its impact in later mathematics, not least Euclid’s geometry and genuine algebra as created in medieval Islam and taken over in European medieval and Renaissance mathematics.

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Two gifted eighteenth-century Londoners, Charles Cavendish and his painfully preeminent son Henry were descendants of paired revolutions, one political and one scientific. Scions of a powerful revolutionary family, they gave an original turn to the duty of public service that attached to their social rank. The English aristocracy knew one of its finest hours when Henry Cavendish gently laid his delicate weights in the scales of the first great precision balance of the century. For this action to happen, it took two generations and two kinds of invention, one in social forms and the other in scientific methods. This joint biography of father and son tells how it came to pass. Henry Cavendish is best known for his researches in chemistry, electricity, and heat, but in truth he worked in every part of physical science, bringing to it his unique combination of experimental precision and mathematical penetration. His accomplishment is likened to the highest example: since the death of Newton, Humphry Davy wrote, England has suffered "no scientific loss so great as that of Cavendish." Through inheritance he became immensely rich. Regarding intellect and fortune, he is called "the wisest of the rich and the richest of the wise." In his exclusive devotion to science, he is compared with "the most austere anchorites," who were "not more faithful to their vows." With reference to his legendary shyness, he is described as a man of "most reserved disposition," of a "degree bordering on disease." He was, to be sure, all of these things: one of the best scientists of his time, one of the richest men in the kingdom, a member of one of the politically most influential aristocratic families, a scientific fanatic, and a person of extraordinary peculiarities. This biography, a major revision of the original published in 1999, offers an enlarged understanding of the eighteenth century world of science and a reevaluation both of the scientific genius and of the remarkable personality of Henry Cavendish. It is a comprehensive study of science, family, and society in the eighteenth century.

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Two gifted eighteenth-century Londoners, Charles Cavendish and his painfully preeminent son Henry were descendants of paired revolutions, one political and one scientific. Scions of a powerful revolutionary family, they gave an original turn to the duty of public service that attached to their social rank. The English aristocracy knew one of its finest hours when Henry Cavendish gently laid his delicate weights in the scales of the first great precision balance of the century. For this action to happen, it took two generations and two kinds of invention, one in social forms and the other in scientific methods. This joint biography of father and son tells how it came to pass. Henry Cavendish is best known for his researches in chemistry, electricity, and heat, but in truth he worked in every part of physical science, bringing to it his unique combination of experimental precision and mathematical penetration. His accomplishment is likened to the highest example: since the death of Newton, Humphry Davy wrote, England has suffered "no scientific loss so great as that of Cavendish." Through inheritance he became immensely rich. Regarding intellect and fortune, he is called "the wisest of the rich and the richest of the wise." In his exclusive devotion to science, he is compared with "the most austere anchorites," who were "not more faithful to their vows." With reference to his legendary shyness, he is described as a man of "most reserved disposition," of a "degree bordering on disease." He was, to be sure, all of these things: one of the best scientists of his time, one of the richest men in the kingdom, a member of one of the politically most influential aristocratic families, a scientific fanatic, and a person of extraordinary peculiarities. This biography, a major revision of the original published in 1999, offers an enlarged understanding of the eighteenth century world of science and a reevaluation both of the scientific genius and of the remarkable personality of Henry Cavendish. It is a comprehensive study of science, family, and society in the eighteenth century.

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Der Liber de triplici motu ist ein Werk von Alvarus Thomas aus dem Jahr 1509. Das Buch repräsentiert einen letzten Höhepunkt der scholastischen Auseinandersetzung mit der aristotelischen Bewegungslehre vor der Entstehung der klassischen Mechanik, an dem man die entscheidenden Stadien der Transformation des Bewegungsbegriffs seit der Antike studieren kann. Von zukunftsweisender Bedeutung ist darin die mathematische Proportionslehre und die damit verbundene Quantifizierung von naturphilosophischen Qualitäten nach den Methoden der Oxforder Kalkulatoren wie zum Beispiel die Quantifizierung der Geschwindigkeit einer Bewegung. Aus dem Inhalt und der Strukturierung des Werks sowie dem Leben von Alvarus Thomas lassen sich die Zusammenhänge zwischen Formen und Inhalten der Wissensvermittlung und Wissensproduktion, zwischen wissenschaftlicher Forschung und wissenschaftlicher Sozialisation für das frühe 16. Jahrhundert erhellen. Dieser erste Band zu Alvarus Thomas und seinem Liber de triplici motu bietet zudem einen strukturierten Abriss des Werks, einen Glossar zum mathematischen und naturphilosophischen Vokabular sowie weiteres bibliographisches Material. Die Edition Open Sources (EOS) setzt ein neues Paradigma im Verlagswesen im Hinblick auf wissenschaftliche Publikationen von Quellen um. Die herausgegebenen Werke sind in unterschiedlichen Formaten online frei zugänglich, und auch in gedruckter Form erhältlich. EOS-Publikationen behandeln wichtige Originalquellen zur Geschichte und Entwicklung des Wissens, die als Faksimile und bearbeitete Neuausgabe eines Textes, teilweise auch als Übersetzung bereitgestellt und mit einer Einführung in Autor, Werk und Entstehungszeit versehen werden. Bei den Quellen kann es sich um historische Bücher, Manuskripte, Dokumente oder andere Materialien handeln, die ansonsten schwer zugänglich sind. EOS ist eine Zusammenarbeit der University of Oklahoma Libraries, des Department for the History of Science der University of Oklahoma sowie des Max-Planck-Instituts für Wissenschaftsgeschichte.

MPRL --- Edition Open Access --- history of science

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Giovanni Battista Benedetti is counted as one of the most brilliant mathematical and philosophical minds of the late Italian Renaissance. However, the theoretical and historical relevance of his work is still obscure in many respects. This is due to several factors, principal among which is the relative rarity of his major work, Diversarum speculationum mathematicarum et physicarum liber (Book including various mathematical and physical speculations), 1585. This work was a major contribution to Renaissance science, especially due to its insights on mechanics, the mathematical approach to natural investigation, and the connection of celestial and terrestrial dynamics in a post-Copernican perspective. The first edition was an elegant folio, which includes heterogeneous writings not only on mathematics and physics but also on technical and philosophical issues. Benedetti presented these as short treatises or letters addressed to gentlemen, courtiers, scholars, engineers, and practitioners of different arts. The Diversae speculationes appeared in a series of prestigious volumes aimed at celebrating the magnificence of the court and the capital. It aimed to make the quality of the court mathematician’s research and skills publicly appreciable. It also bore witness to the intensity of the cultural debates going on in Turin or connecting it with other centers, especially Venice. This open access edition makes the Benedetti’s work accessible to a large scholarly readership. In the extensive introduction, his achievement is presented in its rich complexity. Benedetti is emblematic of his time and of the non-linearity of the historical process of Renaissance science with its multicentric institutions and scientific networks. The apparent fragmentary nature of his work hides a fundamental unity of the conception and the method, both of which rest on geometry. Benedetti regarded mechanics as a model, but he enlarged his perspective to include the most varied fields of investigation and concretely to demonstrate the fruitfulness of his approach to universal knowledge, astronomy, physics, meteorology, and even to ethics. Edition Open Sources (EOS) pioneers a new paradigm in the publishing of historical sources. Academic editions of primary sources in the history of science are published in online, digital, and print formats that present facsimiles, transcriptions, and often translations of original works with an introduction to the author, the text, and the context in which it was written. The sources are historical books, manuscripts, documents, or other archival materials that are otherwise difficult to access. EOS is a cooperation between the University of Oklahoma Libraries, the Department for the History of Science der University of Oklahoma, and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science.

MPRL --- Edition Open Access --- history of science