Henri Poincaré : a scientific biography / Jeremy Gray.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gray, Jeremy, 1947-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Poincaré, Henri, 1854-1912.

Poincaré, Henri.

Scientists--France--Biography.

Scientists.

France.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xiii, 592 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [2013]

Summary:

"Henri Poincaré (1854-1912) was not just one of the most inventive, versatile, and productive mathematicians of all time--he was also a leading physicist who almost won a Nobel Prize for physics and a prominent philosopher of science whose fresh and surprising essays are still in print a century later. The first in-depth and comprehensive look at his many accomplishments, Henri Poincaré explores all the fields that Poincaré touched, the debates sparked by his original investigations, and how his discoveries still contribute to society today. Math historian Jeremy Gray shows that Poincaré's influence was wide-ranging and permanent. His novel interpretation of non-Euclidean geometry challenged contemporary ideas about space, stirred heated discussion, and led to flourishing research. His work in topology began the modern study of the subject, recently highlighted by the successful resolution of the famous Poincaré conjecture. And Poincaré's reformulation of celestial mechanics and discovery of chaotic motion started the modern theory of dynamical systems. In physics, his insights on the Lorentz group preceded Einstein's, and he was the first to indicate that space and time might be fundamentally atomic. Poincaré the public intellectual did not shy away from scientific controversy, and he defended mathematics against the attacks of logicians such as Bertrand Russell, opposed the views of Catholic apologists, and served as an expert witness in probability for the notorious Dreyfus case that polarized France. Richly informed by letters and documents, Henri Poincaré demonstrates how one man's work revolutionized math, science, and the greater world"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

1 The Essayist 27

Poincaré's and the Three Body Problem 27

Poincaré's Popular Essays 34

Paris Celebrates the New Century 59

Science, Hypothesis, Value 67

Poincaré and Projective Geometry 76

Poincaré's Popular Writings on Physics 100

The Future of Mathematics 112

Poincaré among the Logicians 123

Poincaré's Defenses of Science 144

2 Poincaré's Career 153

Childhood, Schooling 153

The École Polytechnique 157

The École des Mines 158

Academic Life 160

The Dreyfus Affair 165

National Spokesman 169

Contemporary Technology 177

International Representative 187

The Noble Prize 192

1911, 1912 200

Remembering Poincaré 202

3 The Prize Competition of 1880 207

The Competition 207

Fuchs, Schwarz, Klein, and Automorphic Functions 224

Uniformization, 1882 to 1907 247

4 The Three Body Problem 253

Flows on Surfaces 253

Stability Questions 265

Poincaré's Essay and Its Supplements 266

Les Méthodes Nouvelles de la Mécanique Céleste 281

Poincaré Returns 291

5 Cosmogony 300

Rotating Fluid Masses 300

6 Physics 318

Theories of Electricity before Poincaré: Maxwell 318

Poincaré's Électricité et Optique, 1890 329

Larmor and Lorentz: The Electron and the Ether 338

Poincaré on Hertz and Lorentz 346

St. Louis, 1904 356

The Dynamics of the Electron 361

Poincaré and Einstein 367

Early Quantum Theory 378

7 Theory of Functions and Mathematical Physics 382

Function Theory of a Single Variable 382

Function Theory of a Several Variables 391

Poincaré's Approach to Potential Theory 402

The Six Lectures in Göttingen, 1909 416

8 Topology 427

Topology before Poincaré 427

Poincare's Work, 1895 to 1905 432

9 Interventions in Pure Mathematics 467

Number Theory 467

Lie Theory 489

Algebraic Geometry 498

10 Poincaré as a Professional Physicist 509

Thermodynamics 513

Probability 518

11 Poincaré and the Philosophy of Science 525

Poincaré: Idealist, Skeptic, or Structural Realist? 525.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

ISBN:

9780691152714

0691152713

OCLC:

788266487