History (from Greek ἱστορία, historia, meaning "inquiry; knowledge acquired by investigation") is the scientific study of the past. Events occurring before the invention of writing systems are considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term that relates to past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of information about these events. Historians place the past in context using historical sources such as written documents, oral accounts, ecological markers, and material objects including art and artifacts.History also includes the academic discipline which uses narrative to describe, examine, question, and analyze a sequence of past events, and investigate the patterns of cause and effect that are related to them. Historians seek to understand and represent the past through narratives. They often debate which narrative best explains an event, as well as the significance of different causes and effects. Historians also debate the nature of history and its usefulness by discussing the study of the discipline as an end in itself and as a way of providing "perspective" on the problems of the present.Stories common to a particular culture, but not supported by external sources (such as the tales surrounding King Arthur), are usually classified as cultural heritage or legends. History differs from myth in that it is supported by evidence. However, ancient influences have helped spawn variant interpretations of the nature of history which have evolved over the centuries and continue to change today. The modern study of history is wide-ranging, and includes the study of specific regions and the study of certain topical or thematic elements of historical investigation. History is often taught as part of primary and secondary education, and the academic study of history is a major discipline in university studies.
Herodotus, a 5th-century BC Greek historian is often considered (within the Western tradition) to be the "father of history", although he has also been called the "father of lies". Along with his contemporary Thucydides, he helped form the foundations for the modern study of human history. Their works continue to be read today, and the gap between the culture-focused Herodotus and the military-focused Thucydides remains a point of contention or approach in modern historical writing. In East Asia, a state chronicle, the Spring and Autumn Annals, was known to be compiled from as early as 722 BC although only 2nd-century BC texts have survived.
In chapter 2.2 of Feynman's book on QFT, he states that the probability amplitude of a particle going from a to b is the sum of contributions from all paths, and that each path contributes the same amplitude, but with a different phase.
My question is, why does Feynman state that this is the...
As I wrote above, together with mathematics, historical analysis has always been a passion of mine and when possible I have tried to combine the two. Recently, while I'm writing a historical text about the First World War, I had to deal with one of the most complex events of the nineteenth...
This has been bugging me for a year or so - sorry if this is off topic, but would anyone on the forum be able to name a book on atomic physics I read as a child?
It was a non-fiction, illustrated picture book I read as in the late 70's or very early 80's, giving the history of atomic science...
Not sure if this has been posted about already, but I enjoyed this :).
(Although I agree with Newton- I have no idea why they paired him up with Bill Nye...)
This one's good too
Interesting Hist Channel show on Star Trek and Physics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNiDoT7blX8
Of particular interest is the number of scientists who were influenced by Star Trek in their youth.
Hey everyone,
I am pursuing my undergraduate studies in Physics.I found the overall syllabus very messy and disordered,so I connect all the dots ,I am searching for books for background reading related to Physics.Are there any books available on 'History of Physics' ?
I'm quite interested in the history behind vector analysis especially Curl and Divergence and gradient operators etc. When James Maxwell derived Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism where these sorts of operations well known and commonly used, or are they modern fabrications. Did Maxwell...
Hello!
Could you, please, name some(if any exists) good reviews about building the general relativity? In all details: with attempts of building the vector theory of gravitation by Poincare; with long Einstein's efforts of building the scalar version; with prediction some of the effects, like...
I would really like to get a good understanding of how modern algebra developed, especially ring theory.
Two books I have recently bought are as follows:
Modern Algebra and the Rise of Mathematical Structures by Leo Corry.
and
Episodes in the History of Modern Algebra (1800 - 1950) by Jeremy...
Can someone please help me with the following:
Prove that if the sum of two consecutive intergers is a square than the square of the larger integer will equal the sum of the nonzero squares.
Hint: if n+(n-1) = h^2 then h is odd.
Not really sure where to start.
Thanks in advance
In this article from City Journal, the writer Heather MacDonald states the following: "The American Founders drew on an astonishingly wide range of historical sources and an appropriately jaundiced view of human nature to craft the world's most stable and free republic. They invoked lessons...
The history of mathematics...help with resources
Hey guys I need help finding good resources to help me understand basic to advance math from a developmental point of view, the applied necessities of the inventors of math operations and concepts.
For example the addition operation was...
I don't know if such thread has been created, all I can find out is one mentioning Zhang's initial bound of $7 \times 10^7$. This has been greatly improved by now so I thought it is worthwhile to post it here as well as the resources which I somehow collected from here and there.
History; a...
Interesting take on solving the Squaring the Circle problem enshrined in law:
http://pulse.edf.com/en/day-pi-became-3-2-instead-3-14159/?utm_source=OutbrainInter&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Trafic
This horse has been beaten so many times, it's not funny. But I, like everyone else need words of advice from people that aren't going to tell me what I want to hear (or maybe they will).
Anyway,
I messed around a lot after high school, took numerous classes at various community colleges...
Non-maths general question on history of space time :)
Hello,
I'm doing a Bsc project on space-time and was hoping to receive some advice on how others would structure the history of the topic. I know this is a broad question but what I'm struggling with is how to narrow down the relevant...
Hello!
I've recently begun to read a lot of nonfiction books.
I'm currently reading a book about stories told by Richard Feynman about his amazing life. It's hilarious and so clever. I would absolutely LOVE to read a book on the history of physics! I think it's really fascinating.
Could...
I do not have the best GCSE's, no-ones fault but my own, I slacked and daydreamed a lot where I even had to go to the hospital to see if something was "wrong".
I made it up via BTEC and got DD, could of been an extra D but through choosing an apprenticeship, I had to sacrifice the extended...
Hi
Im new here, and have begun to read this book. I don't have any science qualification but I've read a few books on evolution. I'm making notes as I go along and here are 2 difficulties I have.
1) It says gravity is for large scale and quantum is at the small scale. I am just wondering...
Let's say you wanted to determine what day in a certain amount of time had been the most influential in our lives today. I theorized that whatever the time period, the first day in that time period would automatically be the most influential day. I though this because as you go farther back in...
So my physics teacher assigned us with this task (title). Basically our objective is to compose a short narrative written in the pov of an electron. The story has to center around places that an electron visits, that once lived in an atom wool, and ultimately entered the ground. The electron has...
For some reason I thought it would be easy to find but I'm trying to find a history of the integral. I'm not really looking for Wikipedia because I know that anyone with a computer can go and change the content so I'm not sure how true it is. Does anyone know of a good source I can look at...
This was described by Michael E. Mann,professor of meteorology at Penn State University.
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/Mann/news/interviews.php
Others have had readings that give similar results.
"While scientists and environmentalists have used the daily milestone to...
History Channel's "Ancient Aliens"
I watched a few episodes of this after repeated requests from my friends ,i not really convinced by their theories but since my knowledge of physics is limited ,i might need some help in either dismissing or accepting their theories, i hope those who are...
I'm curious about two things. Why did Einstein's 1905 paper contain no citations? Nowadays most papers have one or two pages full of citations, I don't know about back then but he must have had a few.
Secondly, Einstein willed some of his Nobel money to his wife Maric. But that was a year or...
I'm interested in the history tables other PF members are getting as they try out Jorrie's online tabulator. What's your current favorite? So this is to invite folks to use the LaTex feature to get a version of your table you can print in a post in this thread. Which values of the Hubbletimes do...
I ask this because of the lack of actual credible History programming, a lot of the programming now is either reality television or pseudoscience nonsense.
http://www.history.com/schedule
I was watching Lincoln last night, and at a part were the idea of women voting was laughed at by the legislators.
My mom's comment was along the lines of "Oh right, women weren't smart enough to vote back then." or something similar (and a sarcastic tone of course).
My retort was that around...
Here's a sample history from fairly far back in the past, going up to the present (S = 1) in 20 expansion ratio steps, and then in another 20 expansion steps, going out a good stretch into the future, when distances will be 25 times what they are today.
I could have asked for a wider expanse of...
What is its importance? Where there any publications to prove exactly the formulation of Klein Nishina formula of Compton Effect? Why is it that complicated to prove..
I would like to know the history of the value of the speed of the expansion of the universe.
If today it's 74.3 ± 2.1 kilometres per second per megaparsec then how much it was a billion years ago, 5 billion years ago, 10 billion years ago, and how much it was in the first million years after...
Hi PF members!
I've recently been working on an image (see attached thumbnail) in which I try to include the most important/influential steps in the history of science. Now, I am very well aware that this is not easy (!) :smile:, and it will always be debatable and not without controversy...
Okay so I'm using ncbi and when using the nucleotide database, when I access the revision history of a result of any query, I get a lot of sequences. Surprisingly they all are of the same version. Why? If each is different shouldn't they have different version numbers? They all have different...
I learned on the textbook that human calculated the orbital of planets that near the Earth first then based on the difference of the actual data of the planet orbitaland that of human predicted, human calculated out other planets' orbital and predicted some planets like Neptune and Pluto. I...
The credentials and employment history of Thomas Campbell, author of "My Big TOE".
Hello guys. I am currently embroiled in writing a paper on the limitations of the standard scientific method and wish to reference Thomas Campbell's work in said paper. On his website, and during interviews and...
The other night I was contemplating my own mortality, as you do, and became rather depressed by the thought that in two or three generations after my death I'll be forgotten, after a couple of large perspective modifiers, I came to the conclusion that I'm in the same boat as the vast majority...
Calling math history geeks -- any reading suggestions?
Hey everyone! Inquiring minds (well, at least one) want to know: what are some good books on math from a historical perspective?
I recently acquired "Mathematics of Nonmathematicians" (Dover Books) as the reviews suggested it was mostly...
Hi, I have to write a report on measuring g using a simple pendulum and I wanted to get a bit of the background. I understand that a pendulum was the best way to measure g up until about a century ago but did we use anything before that?
Also what kind of methods have taken over?
I've tried...
Most of the wars and battles that took place happened because of fight for natural resources, right?
Could these wars be avoided? Every country wants its survival so they will naturally fight for resources. Now that we have advance technology we can trade resources quickly so fight for...
Hi all,
I have a vehicle multibody model and I want to excite it in different conditions. So I'm thinking to use the PSD or road roughness as reported in the ISO 8608. What I don't understand is, how can I get an equivalent time history of the vertical road displacement from the PSD?
thanks
Hey
I am looking for a book talking about history of mathematics
Steven Krantz has one here
Amazon
Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: An Episodic History of Mathematics: Mathematical Culture through Problem Solving (Maa Textbook) (Mathematical Association of America Textbooks)
who know this book...
Today computer hardware is based on integrated circuits. Its based on digital logic and use transistors etc...(i am not an expert)
But looking on the history of computer hardware- First computers were all mechanical which I understand because of lack of technology. And after than computer were...
I read somewhere that the "path of history" measured in some way can be modeled as Brownian motion with a mean collision time.
There's been several very *specific* models such as:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asm.3150030303/abstract
However, what I'd like to know is that...
Does anybody know of some good books on world history specific to science topics? I'm looking for a good overview from the dawn of civilization to today, though I'd be content with a history that merely goes to the beginning of the 20th century. Currently my best candidate is this...
I was just wondering when the last time the global average temperature was 90 degrees F? Also wondering what a temperature of this extream would do to todays environment and life it self?