Leonhard Euler's Letters to a German Princess

A Milestone in the History of Physics Textbooks and More
Erscheinungsjahr 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64327-193-4
Verlag: IOP Concise Physics

Buch, Englisch, 214 Seiten, Hardback, Format (B × H): 183 mm x 260 mm, Gewicht: 610 g

Leonhard Euler's Letters to a German Princess: A Milestone in the History of Physics Textbooks and More is a milestone in the history of physics textbooks and the instruction of women in the sciences.It also covers views of its author on epistemology, religion, and innovations in scientific equipment, including telescopes and microscopes. Today, 250 years later, we study this work of Euler's as a foundation for the history of physics teaching and analyze the letters from an historical and pedagogical point of view.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Calinger, Ronald S

Denisova, Ekaterina (Katya)

Polyakhova, Elena N

Fachgebiete

• Naturwissenschaften Physik Angewandte Physik Astrophysik
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Formalen Wissenschaften & Technik
• Naturwissenschaften Astronomie Astrophysik
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wissenschafts- und Universitätsgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Preface
- Prologue: physics pedagogy
- Author biographies
- Physics textbooks: origins before 1650 and principal natural philosophies and physics textbooks of the Enlightenment
- The two princesses and the Letters
- Euler: life, research, and teaching
- Selected letters from Volume 1 (letters 1-79)
- Selected letters from Volume 2 (letters 80-154) and Volume 3 (letters 155-234)
- Afterword
- Selected bibliography
- Glossary of principal names

Über Autor(innen)

Ronald S. Calinger received his doctorate in the history of science from the University of Chicago in 1971. He is professor of history emeritus at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. He specializes in the history of mathematics and the mathematical sciences during the Enlightenment and the early nineteenth century. He has taught year-long courses on the history of mathematics, the history of science, and imperial Austria. He received the Austrian Cross, for the Sciences and Arts, First Class, 1996. He was the Founding Chancellor of the Euler Society, 2003, a Dibner Library Resident Scholar, 2007 and 2010, and was invited to lecture on imperial Austria during the Mozart celebration by the Smithsonian Associates, 2006-7. He has written more than 70 research articles and reviews in such journals as Isis, Archive for History of Exact Sciences, Science, and Annals of Science. Among his eight books, he edited Vita Mathematica: Historical Research and Integration with Teaching (1996), and Classics of Mathematics (1999), and wrote A Contextual History of Mathematics: to Euler (1999), and Leonhard Euler: Mathematical Genius in the Enlightenment (2016).

Ekaterina (Katya) Denisova is a physics educator and teacher professional developer at Baltimore City Public Schools, Maryland. She earned a Master's degree in Science Education from University of Northern Iowa, Iowa and a PhD in Physics Education from Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia. Her research focuses on common students' difficulties and misconceptions in conceptual physics courses and strategies of framing science teaching around students' culture. Katya is an active member of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT).

Elena N. Polyakhova graduated from the Mathematics and Mechanics Department Astronomy Division) of the Leningrad University in 1957 and has been teaching Celestial Mechanics at the St. Petersburg State University Astronomy Department since then. The scope of Polyakhova's research interests include celestial mechanics, astrodynamics (space flight dynamics and solar sailing theory), history of natural sciences (physics, mechanics, astronomy, astrodynamics), biographies and scientific legacies of scientists (Leonhard Euler, Sofya Kovalevskaya, Michael Ostrogradsky, Alexander Lyapunov), and of classical and celestial mechanics scholars of St. Petersburg. Polyakhova has published more than 200 research articles, several books, and reference materials on celestial mechanics and history of sciences. In 2012 The Princess Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova's Society (founded by the Dashkova's Moscow Humanitarian Institute) awarded Elena Polyakhova with the gold medal For Freedom and Enlightenment. Elena Polyakhova is honored by the name of a minor planet (asteroid): the numbered minor planet (NMP) 4619 Polyakhova is named after her.