{"id":2196,"date":"2016-06-07T21:41:33","date_gmt":"2016-06-08T05:41:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=2196"},"modified":"2016-06-07T21:41:33","modified_gmt":"2016-06-08T05:41:33","slug":"review-infinitesimal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=2196","title":{"rendered":"Review: Infinitesimal"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think Amir Alexander’s Infinitesimal<\/em> is better in principle than in execution.\u00a0 However the principle is so good that it’s worth reading anyway.<\/p>\n

The topic Alexander is exploring here is how the society of the 1500’s and 1600’s reacted to the fundamental ideas in geometry that became the basis for Netwon’s and Leibnitz’s calculus.\u00a0 The mathematical ideas are compelling in their own right, but Alexander wisely focuses on their effect on thinking outside mathematics.\u00a0 The result makes the forces driving philosophy and religion of these eras clearer and more vivid.<\/p>\n

Infinitesimal<\/em> shows us why the institutions of the day had any interest at all in an obscure mathematical movement and why that interest ebbed and flowed.\u00a0 It’s quite fascinating to see the combinations of personality and politics that caused the interest.\u00a0 I hadn’t realized the reach and vividness of the ideas until I explained what I’d learned from the book to a friend.\u00a0 Quite powerful and surprising ideas.<\/p>\n

There are some problems.\u00a0 The book’s longer than it needs to be, partially because the chapters are somewhat repetitive and not so well integrated as one would hope.\u00a0 I got the impression that they were individually composed and that the editing process was compartmentalized in such a way that the considerable overlap wasn’t spotted.\u00a0 The resulting book is satisfying enough in the small and repetitive in the large.\u00a0 Many parts benefit from skimming.<\/p>\n

Overall an interesting discussion of a fascinating topic. Recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think Amir Alexander’s Infinitesimal is better in principle than in execution.\u00a0 However the principle is so good that it’s worth reading anyway. The topic Alexander is exploring here is how the society of the 1500’s and 1600’s reacted to the fundamental ideas in geometry that became the basis for Netwon’s and Leibnitz’s calculus.\u00a0 The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2196"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2199,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2196\/revisions\/2199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}