Why Beauty is Truth (63 page)

A. Rothman, Genius and biographers: the fictionalization of Évariste Galois:
http://godel.ph.utexas.edu/tonyr/galois.htm

Abacus,
49

Abbott, Edwin,
227

Abel, Hans Mathias,
84
,
88
,
92–93
,
275

Abel, Margaretha,
84–85

Abel, Niels Henrik,
xi
,
85
,
86–88
,
94–95
,
97

Abel, Søren,
84–85
,
86

Accelerations,
194

Aether,
175
,
176
,
191

Aghurmi,
17

Agriculture,
2

Airy, George,
153

Akkad,
1
,
8

Alamut castle,
39

Alberti, Leone,
269
,
270

Alcohol,
84

Alexander, King of Epirus,
18

Alexander the Great,
17–18
,
19

Alexandria,
17
,
19

Algebra,
14–15
,
50
,
143
.
See also
Division algebra
;
Lie algebras
;
Vector algebra

division,
157

questions,
161–162

symbolism in,
35

symmetries in,
121

Algebra
(Bombelli),
60–61

Algebra
(Khayyám),
41

Alternating groups,
115

Alvarez-Gaume, Luis,
252

Amun,
17

Analytical Dynamics
(Whittaker),
213

Analytical Mechanics
(Lagrange),
76–77

Angles

bisecting,
25–26

trisecting,
26
,
27
,
28
,
125

Anomalies,
252

Antikythera,
22

Antimatter,
214
,
245

Antiquarks,
237

Anti-Taurus Mountains,
1

Apollonius,
39

Apostolic Camera,
60

Applied mathematics,
22

Archimedes,
20
,
22
,
27
,
126

Argand diagram,
148

Argand, Jean-Robert,
148

Aristotle,
21
,
140
,
174

Arithmetica
,
35–36

Arslan, Alp,
37–38

Artillery of National Guard,
104
,
105

Ashtekar, Abhay,
255

Asimov, Isaac,
223

Associative law,
151

Assyria,
1

Astrology,
46

Astronomy,
40–41
,
70–71

Asymptotes,
40

Atiyah, Michael,
247–248

Atom, probing of,
235–236

August, Ernst,
73

Axioms of Euclid,
24–25

Azra, Jean-Pierre,
110

Babylon,
2

culture,
4–5

education in,
8–9

fractions in,
12–13

history of,
7

life in,
8–9

mathematics,
13–14

notation systems in,
11–12

time measurements in,
12

Bachelier, Louis,
186

Bader, Peter,
85

Baez, John,
260

Bahariya Oasis,
17

Bandarini, Lucia,
52

Bartels, Johann,
66

Bartolotti, E.,
54

Bastille Day,
107

Bayly, Helen,
142

Beauty

mathematics and,
278
,
280

nature and,
278–279

truth and,
188
,
263
,
275

Becquerel, Alexandre,
186

Bell, Eric Temple,
108
,
138
,
155

Benze, Dorothea,
64

Bernadotte, Jean Baptiste,
85–86

Bernoulli, Johann,
147
,
148
,
209

Bernstein, Carl,
243

Bertel, Annemarie,
204

Bianchi identities,
196

Bible,
6

Big Bang,
193
,
242
,
257–258

Big Crunch,
257–258

Bilson-Thompson, Sundance,
256

Bioctonions,
272

Bisection problem,
25

Black holes,
193

Blackbodies,
201

Bohr, Niels,
203
,
205
,
235

Bolyai, Wolfgang,
64
,
67
,
149

Bombelli, Rafaele,
60–61
,
260

Book of My Life
(Cardano, G.),
46–47

Born, Max,
208

Bose, Satyendranath,
236

Bosons,
236

Bourg-la-Reine,
98
,
102

Bourgne, Robert,
110

Bousso, Raphael,
257

Brahe, Tycho,
40
,
276

Brahmagupta,
37
,
264

Braids,
255–256

Brenda, Georgine Emilia,
204

Brinkley, John,
140

Broom Bridge,
152

Brownian motion,
185–186
,
186

Brunelleschi, Filippo,
269

Bruno, Giordano,
56
,
188

Büttner, J.G.,
64–66

Calabi-Yau manifold,
253
,
254

Calculus,
5
,
149

Cambyses II,
17

Candelas, Philip,
253

Cardano, Fazio,
50
,
51

Cardano, Girolamo,
45–47
,
57–60
,
61
,
78
,
260
,
267

cubic formula of,
145–146

Fontana, Niccolo, and,
53–55

gambling habits of,
51

imprisonment of,
56

Cardano Tower,
90

Cartan, Élie,
169
,
171
,
268–269

Cassiani, Paolo,
79

Cauchy, Augustin-Louis,
75
,
80
,
81
,
101
,
104–105
,
117

Caussidière,
108

Cayley, Arthur,
122
,
261
,
262
,
267

Cayley numbers,
262

Cayley-Dickson process,
265–266

Ceres,
71

Charles
VIII
,
51

Charles
X
,
103

Chevalier, Auguste,
109

Christianity,
48

Circles, squaring,
125
,
129–130

City Philosophical Society,
177

Civilization, origins of,
2

Classifications,
167

Cleopatra,
18

Cloyne, Bishop of,
140

Coefficients,
57
,
106

Colburn, Zerah,
138

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor,
139–140

Collège Charlemagne,
127

Commutative law,
151

Commutator,
164

Compass,
33
,
43
,
49
,
63
,
130
,
134
,
150

in Greek geometry,
25–30

problems solvable with,
126–129

Complex numbers,
69
,
70
,
142
,
147
,
156
,
260
,
264

as division algebras,
157

equations and,
68

Hamilton, William Rowan, and,
148–150

as pairs,
150

and triples,
150

Complex systems,
226

Conic sections,
27
,
33
,
41

Connes, Alain,
255

Conti, Vittoria,
76

Conway, John Horton,
136

Copenhagen interpretation,
205
,
209

Copernicus, Nicolaus,
56

Cosa,
50

Coulomb, Charles Augustin,
77

Crelle, August,
92–93

Crick, Francis,
205

Crommelin, Andrew,
212

Cube roots,
48
,
60–61

Cubes, duplicating,
125

Cubic equations,
14
,
33
,
56
,
57
,
78

of Cardano,
145–146

groups and,
116

solving,
42–43
,
57–58
,
90

types of,
41–42

Culture, Babylonian,
4–5

Cuneiform,
5

Curvature, space-time,
192
,
193–194
,
195
,
197

intrinsic,
196

da Vinci, Leonardo,
51
,
269

D'Alembert, Jean Le Rond,
76

Darboux, Gaston,
161

Darius
III
,
18

Darwin, Charles,
184

Davy, Humphry,
177

de Broglie, Louis,
203

de Laplace, Pierre-Simon,
71

de Saint-Venant, Adhémard Jean Claude Barré,
127

Decimal systems,
10

Decimals,
12–13

Decoherence,
206

Deep Throat,
243

Degen, Ferdinand,
85–86
,
265

Degrees,
57

del Ferro, Scipione,
53
,
54
,
55–56

del Nave, Annibale,
54

Delambre, Jean,
80

Della Pittura
(Alberti),
269

Desargues, Girard,
270–271

Descartes, René,
146
,
179

D'Herbinville, Pescheux,
108
,
110

Differential equations,
162

Differential fields,
164–165

Diffraction,
175–176

Digits,
10

Dimensions,
225–226

Diophantine equations,
36

Diophantus,
35–36
,
41

Dirac, Charles,
211

Dirac effect,
212
,
214

Dirac, Paul,
204
,
219
,
244
,
273
,
277
,
278

education of,
211–212

Disney, Catherine,
139
,
153

Disney, Thomas,
153

Disquisitiones Arithmeticae
(Gauss, C. F.),
67
,
134–135
,
166

Distance,
141

Diverse Questions and Inventions
(Fontana),
55

Division algebra,
157

complex numbers as,
157

real numbers as,
157

Division law,
152

DNA,
205
,
241

Donaldson, Simon,
245

Donocrates,
18

Double cones,
39

Drums, vibration patterns,
217

du Motel, Stéphanie-Felicie Poterin,
107
,
108

Duchâtelet, Ernest,
107

Dumas, Alexandre,
105

Dynamical theory,
199

Dyson, Frank,
212

e
,
132

E
=
mc
²
,
191

Earth, rotation of,
187–188

Eclipse,
197

École des Ponts et Chaussées,
127

École Polytechnique,
133

Eddington, Arthur,
198
,
212

Eight-squares formula,
265

Einstein, Albert,
173
,
174
,
181–182
,
194–196
,
212
,
272
,
278–279

education of,
183–184

fame of,
198

research papers of,
185–186

theory of relativity of,
189–190

youth of,
182–183

Einstein equations,
197

components of,
225

Einstein, Hermann,
181
,
185

Einstein, Maria,
181

Electricity,
179
,
187
,
222

Electromagnetism,
184
,
187
,
191
,
197
,
222
,
233
.
See also
Maxwell equations

equations for,
174

as fundamental force,
234–235
,
237–239

gravity and,
223–225

induction,
178

models of,
179

radation,
201–202

symmetries in laws of,
192
,
232

Electrons,
213
,
235
,
256

Electroweak theory,
233

Elements of Geometry
(Euclid),
19
,
22
,
25–26
,
49

Elements of Geometry
(Legendre),
99