SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Ada Lovelace (1815–1852) is celebrated as "the first programmer" for her remarkable 1843 paper which explained Charles Babbage's designs for a mechanical computer. New research reinforces the view that she was a gifted, perceptive and knowledgeable mathematician.
Christopher Hollings and Ursula Martin of Oxford Mathematics, and Adrian Rice, of Randolph-Macon College in Virginia, are the first historians of mathematics to investigate the extensive archives of the Lovelace-Byron family, held in Oxford's Bodleian Library. In two recent papers in the Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics and in Historia Mathematica they study Lovelace's childhood education, where her passion for mathematics was complemented by an interest in machinery and wide scientific reading; and her remarkable two-year "correspondence course" on calculus with the eminent mathematician Augustus De Morgan, who introduced her to cutting edge research on the nature of algebra.
[...] The papers, and the correspondence with De Morgan, can be read in full on the website of the Clay Mathematics Institute, who supported the work, as did the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
[There apparently had been many claims that she lacked the background to have been able to produce the works attributed to her. These papers serve to show that she did, indeed, have the necessary background, curiosity, dedication, and gift for insights to have done so. -Ed.]
Source: University of Oxford Mathematical Institute
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 04 2017, @09:21PM (2 children)
Easily falsifiable by dimensional analysis.
[F] N = [M] kg ⋅ [a] m s-2
Einstein's famous equation E=mc2 is itself a simplistic dimensional analysis to convert kilograms to joules.
[E] J = [m] kg ⋅ [c2] m2 s−2
Einstein must have been a special education dunce because any school child can do dimensional analysis.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 04 2017, @09:48PM (1 child)
> ...any school child can do dimensional analysis.
Really? I was never taught this important technique in grade school (at least not in enough depth that it stuck) and I went to a "highly rated" suburban school system, from 1960-1972. Now I often find young engineers that haven't learned it either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 04 2017, @10:24PM
When I studied physics in school, dimensional analysis wasn't something you were taught. It was something you just did if you wanted to pass the exams. Those who didn't figure out the basic concept of making sure the units matched up in equations were those students who simply failed.