Waiter: How do you like your steak, sir?
Sir: Like winning an argument with my wife.
Waiter: Rare it is.
Brachistochrone problemIn 1697*, Isaac Newton received a copy of Johann Bernoulli's challenge, the long-standing brachistochrone problem. Newton solved it the same day. Bernoulli's new year's present on 1 Jan 1697 to the mathematical world was the problem: “To determine the curved line joining two given points, situated at different distances from the horizontal and not in the same vertical line, along which the mobile body, running down by its own weight and starting to move from the upper point, will descend most quickly to the lower point.”(Bernoulli coined the name from Gr. brachistos, shortest; and chronos, time.) Newton forwarded his solution to the Royal Society—anonymously. When Bernoulli read the solution, he shrewly guessed it was Newton's work. By legend, he said, “I recognize the lion by his paw.”«[* 29 Jan is by the Julian calendar still in use in England at the time. To Bernoulli, in France, on the Gregorian calendar, it was 8 Feb. The year 1697 is is the historical year as we presently use it. But to Newton it was still the civil year of 1696. In England at that time, the year did not increment until the civil new year on 25 Mar. So anything Newton wrote until 25 Mar, he would date as 1696. This ambiguity of the date Newton received the letter is indicated as 29 Jan 1696/7.] |
