I think you’re thinking of Mary Fairfax Somerville. She did write several mathematical books, but I don’t believe she brought Leibniz’s Calculus to England. The English believing that Leibniz plagerized Newton’s work, refused to recognize it. Since Newton’s work was a bit more esoteric and didn’t lend itself to further study, England fell mathematically behind the rest of Europe. That is why most of the big names in Mathematics of the time, Euler, Cauchy, the Bernoullis are from the continent rather than England. This was true for more than 100 years after the death of both men. She did bring some continental math to England, but nothing with Leibniz’s name on it. Physical Geography was her most influencial book, and it was used as a text book for nearly 100 years. She did translate Laplace’s Celestial Mechanics which was an important book in astronomy.

Don’t get me wrong, systhesis is a very important job. Bringing together ideas from varying sources helps spur other ideas. Thus, the publishing and translation of works is an important task. However, in context with this show, they put more emphasis on her putting things together than the people who actually did the work. Further, was there any evidence that Einstein had access to her work? Wouldn’t he have gotten Leibniz’s work directly? Wouldn’t he have access to the experimenter’s published articles? I think she had little if any roll, but they wanted to put her in.

Also, they totally undercut Einstein’s wife’s roll. She had a huge influence on Enstein’s work, but they didn’t want to lessen his achievements by giving partial credit to her. They robbed Peter to pay Paul.

Young Einstein casting and makeup seemed dead on.

I liked that it pointed out the greatest manifestation of Einstein’s genius — his ability to simply ignore the pressures of bourgeois life (finances, marriage, career, family) in order to fully focus on physics.

Wasn’t it Margaret Somerville who helped bring Leibniz and his continental successor’s calculus to England with her famous translation of the text? She was more than just a translator, but her impact on the English speaking world of math users is still felt today.

Overall it seemed to have been created through the same vision that brought us Jane Austen mini-series, and all those Merchant/Ivory films. It was more BBC/PBS than the crisper NOVA documentaries and dramas with which we are more accustomed. Maybe this is the intent of the new CPB, to ascribe these sort of “miracles” of scientific revelation to the ephemera of life (where in the hell were the abject and complete failures of experiments?). If that is the case we should all feel a touch of despair.

I am sure if they could fit more in they would, but that probably is the future in terms of what will come out in more dramatization.

Chad, Dissident

Of course, it brought to light issues on women and I like this fact(even though I would like to kill the issue and men’s observance even in day’s “cultural” and in what I see of older men beyond baby boomers) we are reminded about men’s attitudes.

Second, it leads to a better comprehension I think on what Lavoisier was doing in terms of comparative relations “rust and decay” between the ideas of mass and energy “contained” could actually represent views established in how we see gravitational issues of events in the cosmo. What was released in the bulk. It’s presence?

Gravitational waves and the theoretcial implication of defining this energy mass, as two parts of the same thing. Just further defined, and pointing in refinement literature of reductionistic idealizations. Missing energy?

Having this historical overlay in today’s understanding is a powerful metaphor.

The dramatisations were _way_ over the top we thought. It was also, like your typical science-on-TV show, excruciatingly slow moving and repetitious: it could all have been said in half the time.

Also, the entire 2 hours (minus about 25 minutes for the commercials) were devoted to Einstein’s “afterthought”, E=mc^2. Nothing at all about the other great discoveries of 1905: Brownian motion, SToR, or the photoelectric effect. Just E=mc^2.

And the implication that ordinary KE (E ~ v^2) somehow “presaged” Einstein to some extent was just wierd.

Ergo, disappointing.

My 2p worth.

The acting in the other sections wasn’t that bad (I liked the portrayal of a charismatic young Einstein– as one of my students put it on seeing the pciture of Einstein in 1905, “He was a pimp!”), but something about the Lavoisier bits was just horribly overdone.

Plato: Sure, Newton’s apparent intent is well known. It does not change the power of the analogy.

-cvj

I haven’t seen the show, but you touch on one of my pet peeves. Isn’t things members of a group of a large and longlived profession do sort of a subculture? Why is it then that so called cultural media can not take an interest in describing it correctly?

Isaac Newton famously remarked in a letter to Robert Hooke, dated 5 February 1676:

“If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”

Newton was perhaps making a more personal point than the mere expression of modesty seeing that Hooke was a man of remarkably short stature.

See Clifford, it was about short people:) Even Good scientist’s of heart, perpetuate:)

Maybe this is what “scientists think” about society, and such a early display by Sean on this subject of mystery, is a case in point.

I read Bodanis book quite a while ago and really enjoyed it then.

A while ago I found momentus occasions of individuals very early on, triggered the “lifeplan” and open up the roads that one’s interest and motivation would spark.

What do I mean here.

Well, the gift of the compass given to Einstein very early on. The mystery here, was the nature of needle in the compass and what we had seen of Faraday was enough for any of us to imagine? Did a young boy imagine it too?

No it was indeed “hidden from view” yet we know now don’t we? I used entanglement previously in Seans one liner, and the predecessor of spooky. We know better “now” don’t we?:)

So if we look back to each of our own lives what motivation lies in our experieience, that had set the course for what we shall do today? Was it whimsical, or was there some order?:)

-cvj

Even so the film made me wish I were 35 years younger, I would want to be a physicist if I were able to, which I wasn’t back then, if that makes any sense.