Monday blast from the past #5: Who invented the computer?

Last week saw many denizens of the Intertubes linking to or tweeting about an article in the New York Times on the Science Museums plans to build Babbage’s Analytical Engine. The general direction of the article and many of the comments was whether Babbage can be considered to have invented the computer or should this honour rather go to Alan Turing. Having written a post or three on this subject I have chosen this Monday to represent my thoughts on the subject here, here, here and here.

Monday blast from the past #4: Newton’s dotage

It is a frequently repeated myth in the history of science that Isaac Newton abandoned science in favour of religion and alchemy in his old age when he left Cambridge for London. In this post from July 2009 I put the record straight ordering his religious, alchemical and scientific activities into the right periods of his long and highly active life.

Monday Blast from the Past #3

The first substantive post that I wrote on this blog, following a couple of introductory pieces explaining who I am and why I am blogging, was about the much maligned Jesuit astronomer and mathematicus Christoph Clavius educational reformer and friend of Galileo. I now invite later arrivals at RM to go back and see why one should count Clavius amongst the scientific good guys

Monday Blast from the Past #2

It’s only the second week and I’m already a day late with my Monday Blast from the Past. Some time back I took a somewhat longer look at the famous Galileo quote, “the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics” and that is what is being rewarmed this week for late or later comers.

Regular readers might have noticed that new material is somewhat thin on the ground at the moment here at the Renaissance Mathematicus. This hiatus is the result of too much work necessary to earn money, too many public lectures, which require intensive preparation and too many years worth of tax returns that required my attention. After the coming weekend things should ease up a lot and normal service will resume; two new posts are half written and others are percolating in the twisted recesses of that what’s left of my brain after a lifetime of abuse so there should be something new to read soon.

Monday Blast from the Past #1

The Renaissance Mathematicus has been around for some time now and I have succeeded in maintaining a fairly regular rate of posting. The result of this is that I have accumulated a fair number of posts. Over the time that I have been posting I have acquired some newer readers and for some time now I have also been active on twitter. Having taken a look at my back catalogue I have come to the conclusion that some of my earlier posts are actually fairly readable and have decided to draw the attention of newer readers and the twitter-sphere’s to one post a week, every Monday, under the rubric Monday Blast from the Past. These will be chosen at random or, as this week, by chance and will be not reposted but linked with a short description.

The chance that provoked this week’s choice was an excellent post by Romeo Vitelli at Providentia on the 17th century polymath, founding member of and driving force behind the Royal Society, John Wilkins. I too wrote, some time ago, an appreciation of the good Dr Wilkins, which you are invited to peruse if it should meet your fancy.