History
This part is not complete yet. The stories with no link will be added later.
ps
pdf
How Newton `revealed' to Leibniz his main discovery in mathematics
How Bernoulli and Leibniz tested
what Newton really knew (the brachistochrone problem).
Light I
Reflection. The earliest discovery about the nature of light
Light II
How to rescue drowning people, and how Pierre Fermat `explained' refraction (Last update 9/12)
Little Jo and her pig
(Solution posted 10/21)
Airplane and the wind
(Solution posted 10/21)
Gravity Train Project
(
Solution
posted 10/21) See also
A radio broadcast on this train
and
Romanian
and
Polish
translations.
The Fastest Gravity Train
(TGV brachistochronique, as it is called on the other end)
Brief history
of clock making and of the problem of longitude (Posted 9/11)
How to make better clock I ( pendulum)
How to make better clock (tautochrone pendulum)
How clocks work (according to Andronov, Vitt and Khaikin)
Claude Ptolemy and his `Almagest'
Kepler and his laws
Who discovered the Universal Law of Gravity, and what does it mean `to discover'.
Newton's Principia,
volume 1 (abridged).
How to make steam engines
Why the first transatlantic cable failed
How to chase the U-boats
(Solution posted on 10/21)
Can differential equations save your life?
String with beads
Why airplanes fly and ships sail
(A lecture from my Complex Variables course, fall 2009).
Jet colliding with a plane
(from the same CV course)
High-explosive anti-tank warheads
(from the same CV course)
Cisotti formula