Category archives: History

Clearly placed before the mathematical mind

Clearly placed before the mathematical mind

HistoryPhysics

By DIPC

We recently explored the concepts that Faraday introduced regarding the relationship between electricity and magnetism. In this article we focus on their treatment by Maxwell. The work of Oersted, Ampere, Henry, and finally Faraday had established two basic principles of electromagnetism: 1. An electric current in a conductor produces magnetic lines of force that circle […]

Did the first Americans come from Bilbao?

Did the first Americans come from Bilbao?

AnthropologyArchaeologyGeneticsHistory

By Jesús Zamora Bonilla

As everybody knows, the people from Bilbao are born wherever they want. And, according to one of the most captivating conjectures in contemporary archaeology, this might have been so in a totally unexpected way even from many millennia ago. The conjecture I am referring to is the ‘Solutrean hypothesis’ about the first human population of […]

The math of sex and hunger. A short history of population dynamics

The math of sex and hunger. A short history of population dynamics

BiologyHistoryMathematics

By Pablo Rodríguez Sánchez

The field of population dynamics lies between mathematics and biology. Its subject of study is the evolution of biological populations with time. The natural language for dynamical problems is that of differential equations, and population dynamics is not an exception to this rule. Such a powerful tool was well known since the times of Isaac […]

From gas to cash. The unexpected applications of statistical mechanics

From gas to cash. The unexpected applications of statistical mechanics

HistoryPhysics

By Pablo Rodríguez Sánchez

Mechanics and thermodynamics are two of the main pillars of physics. Mechanics, the branch of physics that studies movement, is considered to be well established since the publication of Isaac Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687). Thermodynamics, the science dealing with heat and temperature, enjoyed its golden age in the 19th century, and was the […]

The conflict between science and religion as an “invented tradition”

The conflict between science and religion as an “invented tradition”

HistoryPhilosophy of scienceSociology

By Invited Researcher

Author: Jaume Navarro received his PhD in history of science from the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (1998). He has been a researcher at the universities of Cambridge, Imperial College (London) and the Max Planck Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte (Berlin). Currently he is an Ikerbasque Research Professor and a member of the Praxis Group at the Faculty […]

Intelligence testing: a history of a fierce debate

Intelligence testing: a history of a fierce debate

HistoryPhilosophy of sciencePsychology

By Invited Researcher

Is the intelligence test an “objective”, scientific device or just a way to “execute” social discrimination? This article (based on ) presents the latest steps to trace the history of one of the most problematic chapters in psychology’s history: the application of intelligence testing. By informing about the history of the IQ debate I want […]