Biography of electrical forces and motion

Jungnickel, Christa and McCormmach, Russell Just as patient experiments could lead to discoveries, so could mathematics with its long chain of reasoning. In the eighteenth century, there was a general expectation that the physical sciences would acquire a mathematical form, if they had not already done so. The history of the physical sciences seemed to have demonstrated that when they became mathematical, progress was made in them.

In papers he wrote out carefully, he sometimes included drawings, made with the aid of drawing instruments, a complementary form of mathematical exactitude Figs. Not all British natural philosophers were knowledgeable in mathematics, but those who like Cavendish studied at Cambridge probably were. Original work in mathematics was published in books and journals including the Philosophical Transactions.

Papers presenting mathematical theories of nature were rare. The Scottish natural philosopher John Playfair said that Maskelyne was a good mathematician but not well-versed in the writings of Continental mathematicians.

History of electricity timeline

Like Maskelyne, in the calculus Cavendish used only Newtonian fluxions. He knew the elementary parts of mathematics: geometry, algebra, trigonometry, and logarithms. He knew about infinite series, a companion to the calculus.