000			02200nam a22002057a 4500
999			_c84838 _d84838
008			160715b xxu||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020			_a9780691152714
082			_bGra _a509.2
100			_aGray, Jeremy
245			_aHenri Poincare _b: A Scientific Biography
260			_aPrinceton _bPrinceton University Press _c2013
300			_axiii; 592p. _c9.5x6.5
520			_aHenri Poincare (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 Poincare explores all the fields that Poincare touched, the debates sparked by his original investigations, and how his discoveries still contribute to society today. Math historian Jeremy Gray shows that Poincare'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 Poincare conjecture. And Poincare'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. Poincare 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 Poincare demonstrates how one man's work revolutionized math, science, and the greater world.
546			_aENG
650			_aPoincare, Henri
650			_aHistory & Philosophy
650			_aPhysics
650			_aEngineering
650			_aScientific Biography
942			_cBK