Böcker i Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences-serien

Ptolemy's Almagest shares with Euclid's Elements the glory of being the scientific text longest in use. The cautious emancipation of the late middle ages and the revolutionary creation of the new science in the 16th century are not conceivable without reference to the Almagest.

One of the pervasive phenomena in the history of science is the development of independent disciplines from the solution or attempted solutions of problems in other areas of science.

This book grew out of my interest in what is common to three disciplines: mathematics, philosophy, and history. Though Zermelo's research has provided the focus for this book, much of it is devoted to the problems from which his work originated and to the later developments which, directly or indirectly, he inspired.

I first learned the theory of distributions from Professor Ebbe Thue Poulsen in an undergraduate course at Aarhus University.

The calculus of variations is a subject whose beginning can be precisely dated. This analysis of Fermat seems to me especially appropriate as a starting point: He used the methods of the calculus to minimize the time of passage cif a light ray through the two media, and his method was adapted by John Bernoulli to solve the brachystochrone problem.

" In the meantime, however, Noel Swerdlow, also starting from Greek astronomy, not only extended his work into a deep analysis of De revolu tionibus, but also systematically investigated its sources and predecessors (Peurbach, Regiomontanus, etc.