"The Giant's Shoulders" blog carnival for October, on history & philosophy of science

Welcome to the October 16, 2011 edition of The Giant's Shoulders. This is a wandering monthly blog carnival, on the on history & philosophy of science, hosted on a different blog each month.

Mathematics, history: Fëanor reports the post "Archimedes and Euclid? Like String Theory versus Freshman Calculus" at the Degrees of Freedom blog, Scientific American Blog Network.

Then a book review: "When numbers were dotty: Marcus du Sautoy on Mayan mathematics and the way we count", in the Daily Telegraph.
A small anecdote from relatively recent mathematics history: "Applications of number theory" posted at the Eon blog.

While this isn't really history, it does deserve mentioning; 21st of October is the Community of Mind - Gather for Gardner day, in celebration of the life of Martin Gardner, who worked very hard to popularize mathematics, magic (conjuring), science and skepticism. Here's my blog post on the meet-up in Germany for that day (this coming Friday).

And really importantly, it was recently Ada Lovelace Day: try "Ada Lovelace Day: Women in the history of science, medicine and technology".

Or "Ada Lovelace Day: Emmy Noether and Symmetry, Revisited" posted on the Galileo's Pendulum blog.

And in similar vein, "Captivated by Science, Mathematics, and Imagination: An 18th Century Lady's Commonplace Book" posted on the Smithsonian Libraries.

Science, history: Then there's "Visiting Down House with Randal Keynes" at The Rough Guide to Evolution blog.

A bit more historically, there's (all in caps! Don't blame me) "THE VIRTUAL VICTORIAN: SO, WHO DID INVENT THE TELEPHONE?" posted at THE VIRTUAL VICTORIAN blog.

An interesting post on "Art, Science, and Historical Method" posted at the Philadelphia Center for History of Science.

Medicine, science, history: Personally, I've always found epidemics very soothing: there's a "History of Scarlet Fever : Werewolves, Sennert and Scarlet Fever" posted at the Memoirs of a Defective Brain blog, and I'll cite a blog post of my own (on my Stranger In An Even Stranger Land blog), which in turn cites two blog posts from ERV and a post from the Contagion blog: "The Black Death (plague) is still a mystery, still not explained".

Climate, enviromentalism, history: "George Perkins Marsh – Master of Footnotes" posted at the 10 Things Wrong With Environmental Thinking blog.
More climatology with: "The Greenhouse Effect at 150: The Planetary Perspective". Oh, and then on the Real Climate site there's "Speculative polar cartography".

Just a news item, but still: "BBC News - Tyndall's climate message, 150 years on".

Chemistry: In short, very short: "A History of Chemistry in Two Words" posted at the Periodic Tabloid.

History, philosophy, politics: Michael Barton wanted to have cited a post by @rmathematicus, so here it is: "A really fucking stupid statement" posted at The Renaissance Mathematicus. You be the judge. Who owns Galileo? Something I really want to blog on myself later.

More philosophy than history: Stefan Heßbrüggen-Walter reports "Sitting on the moon?" posted at the Early Modern Thought Online blog.

Back to history with "The List: Medical Innovations at the Smithsonian" posted on the Smithsonian Magazine.

Plants and history: "JSTOR Early Journal Content Highlights: Joseph Dalton Hooker" posted at the JSTOR Plant Science site.

History, medicine: "Poison or Apoplexy? The Chirurgeon?s Verdict" posted on the The Chirurgeon's Apprentice blog.

Geology, history, paleontology: OK, some geology this time: "The Swindling Geologist (1863)" at the site GeologyWriter (David B. Williams).

Dinosaurs, dinosaurs, dinosaurs! Oh, really geology. First, "Baron Nopcsa: More than just Transylvanian dinosaurs".

And then "Dinosaurs as kangaroos and T-rex the Pop Icon". Oh well. Then the "History of Geology".

Science: Then careers in science: "Science careers: rough today, rough in 1886" posted at the Skulls in the Stars blog. Or how about the "20 Highest-Paying Jobs With an Undergraduate Degree"? You don't always need a doctorate.

How about "Robert Bakewell (1725?-1795) The pioneer of selective breeding"?

Or the "Means of Restoring a Drunken Person", posted on the The Quack Doctor blog?

Some straight history with a bang: "Alfred Nobel: Dynamite Inventor Dies in Italy", on the History Today site.

Thony Christie (@rmathematicus) reports an interesting blog post, "Boethius’s Astronomy: Did it Exist?" posted on Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog.

Then, "Is there Life or Water on Mars?".

Then "The seven suns of Rome".

Or "Tracing the Canals of Mars: An Astronomer's Obsession | Water on Mars | Mars Canals & Alien Life" on the Space.com site.

"Charles Darwin and the Vivisection Outrage" on The Primate Diaries blog.

Yes, well: "Sex-Crazed Astrologer Was a Stellar Records Keeper".

Or "A Tight Fit – Evolution and the Armadillo’s Shell".

Lastly, "The First Personal Computer (?)--"Simon", 1950".

Or "Hitler's letter to the father of quantum mechanics".

And "Experimental medicine in mid-17th-century England", posted on the Early Modern Experimental Philosophy blog, who will be hosting the November edition of The Giant's Shoiulders blog carnival.

That concludes this month's edition of Giant's Shoulders. Thanks to @rmathematicus for doing much of the legwork. Submit your blog article to the next (November) edition of The Giant's Shoulders using the carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.




            Follow @Gurdur  

Comments are welcome! Please keep in mind if you are not registered that comments posted here to this blog post may take a while to appear - up to 16 hours after you post them, since they go onto a moderation queue and have to be individually approved, in order to stop spammers. The answer to the so-called "Random Question" is always "human".



Trackbacks used:
http://blogcarnival.com/bc/tb_45336.html
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/arou...ian/trackback/
http://www.strangehistory.net/2011/1...ist/trackback/
https://blogs.otago.ac.nz/emxphi/201...and/trackback/