The Principles of Analytical Calculation

The article offers a critique of the notion of ‘concepts’ in the history of mathematics. Authors in the field sometimes assume an argument from conceptual impossibility: that certain authors could not do X because they did not have concept Y. The case of the divide between Greek and modern mathematics is discussed in detail, showing that the argument from conceptual impossibility is empirically as well as theoretically flawed. An alternative account of historical diversity is offered,...

Notes on Roulettes and Glissettes

William Henry Besant

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Kuhn on reference and essence

Alexander Bird (2004)

Philosophia Scientiae

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Kuhn’s incommensurability thesis seems to challenge scientific realism. One response to that challenge is to focus on the continuity of reference. The causal theory of reference in particular seems to offer the possibility of continuity of reference that would provide a basis for the sort of comparability between theories that the realist requires. In “Dubbing and Redubbing: The Vulnerability of Rigid Designation” Kuhn attacks the causal theory and the essentialism to which it is related....

Symmetric caustics and Curie's principle

Alain Joets, Ahmed Belaidi, Roland Ribotta (2003)

Banach Center Publications

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Physical systems producing caustics may possess symmetries. In that case the relation between the symmetry of the system, considered as a whole, and the symmetry of the caustic follow a very general symmetry principle, the Curie principle. We give various examples of application of the Curie principle to caustics produced by the deflection of light in liquid crystals: the so called squint effect, the visualization of a new type of roll structure, etc. We show also that the Curie principle...