Week 3, 1500-1800

Assignments

Research Suggestions. Here are some initial suggestions for this period of time. You also are encouraged to explore beyond these.

Mathematics
Logarithms
Calculus

Computing
John Napier
Napier's bones
Henry Briggs
William Oughtred
Sliderule
Wilhelm Schickard
Blaise Pascal
Gottfried Leibniz

Logic

Applications
Compound interest
- with Babylonian logarithms!
Mathematical tables
Trajectories

Planetary Motion
Nicolaus Copernicus
Galileo Galilei
Johannes Kepler
Isaac Newton

Experimental Science
Galileo Galilei
Isaac Newton
The Royal Society of London

Bibliography

William Aspray, ed., Computing Before Computers (Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1990 ). Also available online at http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/DocumentArchive/Documents/Books/Computing Before Computers/CBC.html (Computer History Museum, accessed 2004 Aug 11).

Herman Goldstine. The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann (Princeton University Press, 1972).

Herbert Arthur Klein, The Science of Measurement: A Historical Survey (Dover Publications, 1974). This book is about the process of measuring various aspects of the physical world. It identifies many of the units of measure that would have been used in early computing.

Morris Kline, "A Historical Orientation," Chap. 2 in Mathematics for the Nonmathematician (Dover Publications, 1967).

Morris Kline, "The Mathematization of Science," Chap. 16 in Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times, vol. 1 (Oxford University Press, 1972).

Morris Kline, "The Mathematization of Science," Chap. 3 in Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty (Oxford University Press, 1980).

John J. O'Conner and Edmund F. Robertson, "The MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive," http://turnbull.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/ (School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St. Andrews, Scotland, accessed 2004 Aug 25).

Carl Sagan, Cosmos (Random House, 1980). This gives an overview of astronomy and astrology from ancient times through Ptolemy, Kepler and Newton. Ptolemy's epicycles are illustrated on page 56 and Kepler's laws on pages 62-63.

M. Sintzoff, ed., Science of Computer Programming, vol. 1 no. 3 (North Holland Publishing, 1982 May), cover. Also available online at http://www.dgatx.com/computing/people/M-Sintzoff/pubs/1982/SCP/notes/my-001.html (www.dgatx.com, accessed 2004 Nov 20). The cover page has a photo of a clay tablet of Babylonian logarithms.

"The Galileo Project," http://es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo/ (Rice University, accessed 2004 Sep 1).

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