History – Cantor's Archive

Particle Physics

The Discovery of Spontaneous Radioactivity

Sweety, let me see what you got inside.

Poincaré

Poincaré’s Philosophy of Mathematics

Was his philosophy of mathematics underrated?

History

You Can (Literally) Count On Me

The History of the Abacus

Chess

Chess and Mathematics

At first glance, these two disciplines may seem unrelated. However, mathematics and chess have a large amount of unexpected connections.

Philosophy

Wittgenstein Didn’t Absolutely Agree with Gödel’s Theorems and Russell’s Paradox

(and he was right)

Computer Science

Babbage, Lovelace, and The First Computer

Long before Alan Turing revolutionized the field of computation, there was Charles Babbage and his difference engine. Babbage was a man of many skills, most notably in machinery and in economics, even briefly attempting to begin a political career. He grew frustrated with many of the practices used in England

Quantum Electrodynamics

How Richard Feynman Reinvented Quantum Theory

The Space-Time Approach to Quantum Mechanics

Hardy

On Four Quotes By G.H. Hardy

occasionally let slip that I am an academic great-grandchild of G.H. Hardy, whose non-technical writings about mathematics, in particular A Mathematician’s Apology are often quoted in general discussions of the nature of mathematics. Here I give my personal thoughts related to four of these well known quotations. These

Gödel

Gödel’s Constitutional Quarrel

“The examiner was intelligent enough to quickly quieten Gödel and say ‘Oh god, let’s not go into this’ and broke off the examination at this point, greatly to our relief” — Oskar Morgenstern Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) was the greatest logician who ever lived. At the age of 24, he

Relativity

A Gentle Explanation of E= mc²

Deriving Einstein’s Famous Mass-Energy Equivalence Formula

Einstein

Length Contraction in Einstein’s Theory of Relativity

Why Moving Objects are Shortened

Euler

Infinity in Numbers — Leonhard Euler

This is a story about one of the greatest minds in history, and about the mysteries and beauty surrounding his legacy. The story is about Leonhard Euler (1707–1783).