Search results for " technology & medicine"
showing 10 items of 33 documents
Finnish Shipping — A Nordic Exception?
2012
The Finnish economy has for centuries been dependent on seaborne transport. In some periods, such as the mid-nineteenth century and the 1970s, Finland also emerged as an important shipping nation in international cross-trades. In the mid-1970s, Finnish tonnage was the sixth largest in the world in per capita terms — just after the Scandinavian countries (Karonen, 1992; Kaukiainen, 2008b). Nevertheless, compared to the other Nordic countries, it was a minor player in international shipping and, subsequently, it has fallen even further behind. In 1987, for example, the freight earnings of Finnish shipping were about one-fifth of those of Norway and about one-third of those of Denmark and Swed…
Einstein's Washington Manuscript on Unified Field Theory
2020
In this note, we point attention to and briefly discuss a curious manuscript of Einstein, composed in 1938 and entitled "Unified Field Theory," the only such writing, published or unpublished, carrying this title without any further specification. Apparently never intended for publication, the manuscript sheds light both on Einstein's modus operandi as well as on the public role of Einstein's later work on a unified field theory of gravitation and electromagnetism.
The interplay of various Scandinavian mathematical journals (1859-1953) and the road towards internationalization
2018
Abstract The merger of various Nordic mathematical journals in 1953 into Mathematica Scandinavica (for research) and into Nordisk Matematisk Tidsskrift (for the more elementary topics, from 1979 NORMAT) confirmed increasing cooperation between matured Scandinavian mathematical communities. The merger originated from practical considerations including the wish to have a critical mass for economically viable publications. The present paper presents the basic steps in the development of several Scandinavian mathematical journals from 1859, the year of the foundation of the first general mathematical journal in a Scandinavian language, the Danish Mathematisk Tidsskrift, through various convergi…
Václav Hlavatý on intuition in Riemannian space
2019
Abstract We present a historical commentary together with an English translation of a mathematical-philosophical paper by the Czech differential geometer and later proponent of a geometrized unified field theory Vaclav Hlavatý (1894–1969). The paper was published in 1924 at the height of interpretational debates about recent advancements in differential geometry triggered by the advent of Einstein's general theory of relativity. In the paper he argued against a naive generalization of analogical reasoning valid for curves and surfaces in three-dimensional Euclidean space to the case of higher-dimensional curved Riemannian spaces. Instead, he claimed, the only secure ground to arrive at resu…
The “Circolo Matematico di Palermo” and the First World War: The crisis of scientific internationalism: a view through the unedited correspondence of…
2021
Abstract In this work the situation of the “Circolo Matematico di Palermo” between 1914 and 1928 is analyzed. It will be observed that during this time the Circolo was among the few European scientific associations with German as well as French associates. During the 1930s, the nationalist politics of Fascism and above all the racial laws dealt a deadly blow to the Circolo as an international scientific association. We will use the rich correspondence in the Circolo's archives to shed some light on this. In particular, the correspondence between M. De Franchis and E. Landau and other recently found documents will figure prominently.
Historical Origins of the nine-point conic -- The Contribution of Eugenio Beltrami
2020
In this paper, we examine the evolution of a specific mathematical problem, i.e. the nine-point conic, a generalisation of the nine-point circle due to Steiner. We will follow this evolution from Steiner to the Neapolitan school (Trudi and Battaglini) and finally to the contribution of Beltrami that closed this journey, at least from a mathematical point of view (scholars of elementary geometry, in fact, will continue to resume the problem from the second half of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century). We believe that such evolution may indicate the steady development of the mathematical methods from Euclidean metric to projective, and finally, with Beltrami, with the use of quadrat…
From the theory of “congeneric surd equations” to “Segre's bicomplex numbers”
2015
We will study the historical pathway of the emergence of Tessarines or Bicomplex numbers, from their origin as "imaginary" solutions of irrational equations, to their insertion in the context of study of the algebras of hypercomplex numbers.
The History of psychology course in Spanish psychology curricula: Past, present, future
2016
Since the university education of psychologists began in Spain in 1954, the history of psychology course has been included in the curriculum. In the first few years, only half of the curricula offered the course. From 1973 to 2007, the universities' organization and regulation underwent successive reforms that involved changes in the curricula, decreeing specific national guidelines for each degree and establishing a minimum set of common required courses, called core courses, including the history of psychology. In 2007, the European Higher Education Area was set up, transforming the 5-year bachelor's degrees into 4-year degrees and eliminating the required guidelines, with each university…
The treatment of madness in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: discourses about curability in Spanish mental health care, 1890-1917
2016
Resumen En el trabajo se estudian los discursos sobre la cura que elaboraron los médicos mentalistas españoles en la transición del siglo XIX al XX. Si en las décadas de los años 1870 y 1880 el discurso preponderante promulgado por los médicos pertenecientes a instituciones privadas era extremadamente optimista, posteriormente cambió y se orientó hacia un mayor pesimismo terapéutico. Sin embargo, dadas las necesidades profesionales de los frenópatas, siguieron mostrando una confianza más o menos firme hacia las capacidades terapéuticas de la psiquiatría. La recepción de las nuevas nosologías, como la de Kraepelin, estuvo condicionada, en parte, por la actitud hacia la cura de los médicos me…