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Articles 1 - 24 of 24
Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Review: Robert H. Nelson, The New Holy Wars: Economic Religion Vs. Environmental Religion In Contemporary America, Andre Wakefield
Review: Robert H. Nelson, The New Holy Wars: Economic Religion Vs. Environmental Religion In Contemporary America, Andre Wakefield
Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research
This is a book review of Robert H. Nelson's The New Holy Wars: Economic Religion vs. Environmental Religion in Contemporary America. Nelson argues that environmentalism and economics represent competing religious worldviews. Within this framework, debates over issues like global warming and acid rain become veiled theological disputes between these two “secular religions.” Nelson paints with a broad, aggressive brush. This is both the strength and weakness of his book, as he conjures a world of epic battles between the economic faithful, who worship material progress, and the environmentally pious, who bemoan the corruption visited by humans upon the natural world. …
Why Did Lagrange "Prove" The Parallel Postulate?, Judith V. Grabiner
Why Did Lagrange "Prove" The Parallel Postulate?, Judith V. Grabiner
Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research
In 1806, Joseph-Louis Lagrange read a memoir "proving" Euclid's parallel postulate to the Institut de France in Paris. The memoir still exists in manuscript, and we’ll look at what it says. We ask why he tried to prove the postulate, and why he attacked the problem in the way that he did. We also look at how the ideas in this manuscript are related to such things as Lagrange’s philosophy of mathematics, artists’ ideas about space, Newtonian mechanics, and Leibniz's Principle of Sufficient Reason. Finally, we reflect on how this episode changes our views about eighteenth-century attitudes toward geometry, space, …
At The Creation: The National Forest Commission Of 1896-97, Gerald W. Williams, Char Miller
At The Creation: The National Forest Commission Of 1896-97, Gerald W. Williams, Char Miller
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
Among the central forces in the creation of the legislation necessary to establish federal forestry was the National Forest Commission. Its members included some of the leading conservationists of the 1890s, including Charles Sprague Sargent and Gifford Pinchot; John Muir was an unofficial member. Its final report advocated the establishment of a national forest system and served as the basis for the so-called Organic Act, which cleared the way for active management on federal forests and grasslands. Unlike the other articles, this one contains several excerpted documents interspersed with exposition.
French Lessons: F.P. Baker, American Forestry, And The 1878 Paris Universal Exposition, Char Miller
French Lessons: F.P. Baker, American Forestry, And The 1878 Paris Universal Exposition, Char Miller
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
Although he never became a forester, F. P. Baker did much to advance the profession’s cause. Its potential became clear to him while serving as a U.S. Commissioner to the 1878 Paris Exposition, during which he reported on European forestry, its scientific methods and political meaning. Returning home, he was inspired to advance forestry in America.
Amateur Hour: Nathaniel H. Egleston And Professional Forestry In Post-Civil War America, Char Miller
Amateur Hour: Nathaniel H. Egleston And Professional Forestry In Post-Civil War America, Char Miller
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
Nathaniel Egleston, the second head of the U.S. Division of Forestry (1883–1886), is a forgotten figure in the history of early American forestry. The one-time minister became a tireless advocate for trees in the post-Civil War era, writing innumerable and well-received essays and pamphlets. But his enthusiasm did not translate into administrative success, and he was replaced by Bernard Fernow, who in turn was succeeded by Gifford Pinchot; the pair’s scientific training signaled the professionalization of American forestry.
Deep Roots: The Late Nineteenth Century Origins Of American Forestry, Char Miller
Deep Roots: The Late Nineteenth Century Origins Of American Forestry, Char Miller
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
The U.S. Forest Service celebrated its centennial in 2005, an event that depended on a set of individuals who in the years immediately prior to the agency’s creation in 1905 labored quietly, and sometimes not so quietly, to defuse opposition to the idea of it within the executive and legislative branches. Surely the most crucial of these figures was Gifford Pinchot, then head of the Bureau of Forestry, and President Theodore Roosevelt: animating their activism was a shared conviction that conservation of the nation’s natural resources would save the United States from economic ruin and a collective faith that a …
Newton, Maclaurin, And The Authority Of Mathematics, Judith V. Grabiner
Newton, Maclaurin, And The Authority Of Mathematics, Judith V. Grabiner
Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research
Sir Isaac Newton revolutionized physics and astronomy in his Principia. How did he do it? Would his method work on any area of inquiry, not only in science, but also about society and religion? We look at how some Newtonians, most notably Colin Maclaurin, combined sophisticated mathematical modeling and empirical data in what has come to be called the "Newtonian Style." We argue that this style was responsible not only for Maclaurin’s scientific success but for his ability to solve problems ranging from taxation to insurance to theology. We show how Maclaurin’s work strengthened the prestige of Newtonianism and …
Eminent Domain: B.L. Wiggins, Forestry, And The New South At Sewanee, Char Miller
Eminent Domain: B.L. Wiggins, Forestry, And The New South At Sewanee, Char Miller
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
The history of the University of the South and of its forest is intertwined. The health of the forest—and of the university—hung in the balance when Benjamin Wiggins took charge of both in 1893.
An Open Field, Char Miller
An Open Field, Char Miller
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
It should have been during a similarly punishing and mercurial moment in late twentieth-century San Antonio, enveloped in a "furious storm of rain, of hail, or of snow," that I initially encountered Richard White's seminal historiographical essay. Such a convergence of art, life, and weather pattern might have defied reality, but it would have made for a fabulous narrative opening. That said, like the norther's rush, his article, which I read shortly after its publication in the August 1985 issue of the Pacific Historical Review, blew me away.
Back To The Garden: The Redemptive Promise Of Sustainable Forestry, 1893-2000, Char Miller
Back To The Garden: The Redemptive Promise Of Sustainable Forestry, 1893-2000, Char Miller
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
As we struggle at the turn of the century to define and implement “sustainable forestry”— the next stage in the evolution of forest management in North America and the world—it is important to realize that its components have strong roots in the forestry profession. This article examines the relationship of forests and forestry with social equity issues during the last century. In the end, the author leaves us with a question: can sustainable forestry as we understand it today lead to conflict resolution? If not, what lies beyond sustainable forestry?
Grazing Arizona: Public Land Management In The Southwest, Char Miller
Grazing Arizona: Public Land Management In The Southwest, Char Miller
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
In February of 1999, the chief of the U.S. Forest Service, Michael Dombeck, placed a moratorium on road building on most roadless areas. In October, President Clinton put forth an initiative to prohibit road building on 40 million acres of roadless area. Such modifications in Forest Service land management decisions is not new as suggested by Char Miller in this look back at early grazing decisions by Pinchot. To be proactive and reactive at the same time in relation to changing social pressures and political realties may be the legacy of the agency.
Was Newton's Calculus A Dead End? The Continental Influence Of Maclaurin's Treatise Of Fluxions, Judith V. Grabiner
Was Newton's Calculus A Dead End? The Continental Influence Of Maclaurin's Treatise Of Fluxions, Judith V. Grabiner
Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research
We will show that Maclaurin's Treatise of Fluxions did develop important ideas and techniques and that it did influence the mainstream of mathematics. The Newtonian tradition in calculus did not come to an end in Maclaurin's Britain. Instead, Maclaurin's Treatise served to transmit Newtonian ideas in calculus, improved and expanded, to the Continent. We will look at what these ideas were, what Maclaurin did with them, and what happened to this work afterwards. Then, we will ask what by then should be an interesting question: why has Maclaurin's role been so consistently underrated? Thse questions will involve general matters of …
Sunbelt Texas, Char Miller
Sunbelt Texas, Char Miller
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
What then is the Sunbelt, and Texas' place within it? The region first had to be recognized as a region, of course, and that has taken some doing. The term was initially employed in the late 1960s and soon came to loom large in the popular imagination. Still, its boundaries were and are inexact. Where is the Sunbelt? Some commentators have adopted an all-inclusive definition which links together those states south of the thirty-seventh parallel; an even more expansive version includes Virginia and the Pacific Northwest. Others rely on more precise, but no less problematic descriptions which, depending on the …
The Rise Of Urban Texas, Char Miller, David R. Johnson
The Rise Of Urban Texas, Char Miller, David R. Johnson
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
Texas contains three of the nation's ten largest cities, but their existence has not yet affected the hold that the state's rural heritage has on Texas' imagination--or so Texans' attachment to two nineteenth-century cultural landmarks, the Alamo and the Chisholm Trail, would suggest. As the shrine of Texas liberty, the Alamo continually generates elegies to the manly courage and bravery of the fallen heroes of 1836.
The Centrality Of Mathematics In The History Of Western Thought, Judith V. Grabiner
The Centrality Of Mathematics In The History Of Western Thought, Judith V. Grabiner
Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research
This article explores the interplay of mathematics and philosophy in Western thought as well as applications to other fields.
Computers And The Nature Of Man: A Historian's Perspective On Controversies About Artificial Intelligence, Judith V. Grabiner
Computers And The Nature Of Man: A Historian's Perspective On Controversies About Artificial Intelligence, Judith V. Grabiner
Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research
The purpose of the present paper is to provide a historical perspective on recent controversies, from Turing's time on, about artificial intelligence, and to make clear that these are in fact controversies about the nature of man. First, I shall briefly review three recent controversies about artificial intelligence, controversies over whether computers can think and over whether people are no more than information-processing machines. These three controversies were each initiated by philosophers who, irrespective of what the programs of their time actually did, viewed with alarm the argument that if a machine can think, a thinking being is just a …
The Changing Concept Of Change: The Derivative From Fermat To Weierstrass, Judith V. Grabiner
The Changing Concept Of Change: The Derivative From Fermat To Weierstrass, Judith V. Grabiner
Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research
Historically speaking, there were four steps in the development of today's concept of the derivative, which I list here in chronological order. The derivative was first used; it was then discovered; it was then explored and developed; and it was finally defined. That is, examples of what we now recognize as derivatives first were used on an ad hoc basis in solving particular problems; then the general concept lying behind them these uses was identified (as part of the invention of calculus); then many properties of the derivative were explained and developed in applications both to …
Who Gave You The Epsilon? The Origins Of Cauchy's Rigorous Calculus, Judith V. Grabiner
Who Gave You The Epsilon? The Origins Of Cauchy's Rigorous Calculus, Judith V. Grabiner
Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research
This paper recounts the history of how calculus came to get a rigorous basis in terms of the algebra of inequalities. The result is a brief history of the 150 years from Newton and Leibniz to Cauchy that produced the foundations of analysis.
Course Syllabus: Perspectives On Computers And Society, Judith V. Grabiner
Course Syllabus: Perspectives On Computers And Society, Judith V. Grabiner
Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research
Weizenbaum's statement is a compelling exhortation to his fellow professionals; nevertheless, I cannot wholly agree. It should be possible for nonprofessionals to understand, as a result of their own reading and experience, how computers interact with the rest of human life. The problems are not just technical, and their nature is not entirely unprecedented.
Závisí Matematická Pravda Od Času?, Judith V. Grabiner
Závisí Matematická Pravda Od Času?, Judith V. Grabiner
Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research
This is a Slovak translation of Judith Grabiner's "Is Mathematical Truth Time-Dependent?," published in Volume 81 of American Mathematical Monthly (April 1974).
James Eights, Albany Naturalist: New Evidence, Char Miller, Naomi Goldsmith
James Eights, Albany Naturalist: New Evidence, Char Miller, Naomi Goldsmith
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
Eights's contributions to scientific study and to the popularization of science have been understated and misunderstood.
Mathematics In America: The First Hundred Years, Judith V. Grabiner
Mathematics In America: The First Hundred Years, Judith V. Grabiner
Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research
There are two main questions I shall discuss in this paper. First, why was American mathematics so weak from 1776 to 1876? Second, and much more important, how did what happened from 1776-1876 produce an American mathematics respectable by international standards by the end of the nineteenth century? We will see that the "weakness" -at least as measured by the paucity of great names- co-existed with the active building both of mathematics education and of a mathematical community which reached maturity in the 1890's.
The Mathematician, The Historian, And The History Of Mathematics, Judith V. Grabiner
The Mathematician, The Historian, And The History Of Mathematics, Judith V. Grabiner
Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research
The historian's basic questions, whether he is a historian of mathematics or of political institutions, are: what was the past like? and how did the present come to be? The second question --how did the present come to be?-- is the central one in the history of mathematics, whether done by historian or mathematician. But the historian's view of both past and present is quite different from that of the mathematician. The historian is interested in the past in its full richness, and sees any present fact as conditioned by a complex chain of causes in an almost unlimited past. …
Is Mathematical Truth Time-Dependent?, Judith V. Grabiner
Is Mathematical Truth Time-Dependent?, Judith V. Grabiner
Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research
Another such mathematical revolution occurred between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and was focused primarily on the calculus. This change was a rejection of the mathematics of powerful techniques and novel results in favor of the mathematics of clear definitions and rigorous proofs. Because this change, however important it may have been for mathematicians themselves, is not often discussed by historians and philosophers, its revolutionary character is not widely understood. In this paper, I shall first try to show that this major change did occur. Then, I shall investigate what brought it about. Once we have done this, we can …