Another post from the History Book Club. Continue reading
Category Archives: History
Gracefully Insane
Filed under History Book Club, Reviews
The Second French Revolution
Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People
Another post from the History Book Club. Continue reading
Filed under History Book Club, Reviews
The Decision to Drop the Bomb
Another post from the History Book Club.
(Why ‘atomic bomb’ rather than ‘nuclear bomb’? See this post.)
Filed under History Book Club, Physics, Reviews
The Making of the Atomic Bomb
For a few years, I belonged to a history book club. Unlike many book clubs, we didn’t all read the same book. Instead, we’d pick a topic for the next meeting, at which the participants would each give short presentations on books of their choosing.
Recently I ran across my write-ups. As the internet has yet to run out of space, I thought I’d post them. I begin with two on the atomic bomb.
(Why ‘atomic bomb’, rather than ‘nuclear bomb’? See this post.)
Filed under History Book Club, Physics, Reviews
Weierstrass’s Smackdown of Dirichlet’s Principle
In 1856 Dirichlet made the following claim in a lecture:
The Monoenergetic Heresy (Part 1)
The Emperor Heraclius.
Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. Wikimedia Commons
And now for something completely different.
Filed under Bagatelles, History
Year Zero
Awhile back, the BBC website History Extra had a post that included this tidbit:
AD 0… the date that never was
The AD years of the Christian calendar are counted from the year of Jesus Christ’s birth, and, as the number zero was then unknown to the west, Dionysius began his new Christian era as AD 1, not AD 0. …
This evoked the ire of the noted historian Thony Christie. In a post Something is Wrong on the Internet, he explained:
Filed under Bagatelles, History
Why “atomic bomb” instead of “nuclear”?
Why do we (mostly) say atomic bomb instead of nuclear bomb, which is technically more correct? This was asked on the History of Science and Math stackexchange. Here’s my answer.
