Wednesday, January 04, 2012

A unique strand ...

... Rhyme and reason: The Victorian poet scientists - physics-math - 30 December 2011 - New Scientist. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)


James Clerk Maxwell, famous for his unifying theory of electromagnetism, was one of the most prominent Victorian poet scientists. Besides more serious attempts to express the trials of academic study, his work contained humorous ways to explain mathematical problems, such as A Problem in Dynamics, composed in 1854, which begins:
An inextensible heavy chain,
Lies on a smooth horizontal plane,
An impulsive force is applied at A,
Required the initial motion of K...

No comments:

Post a Comment