"The Politics Presidents Make"

I just finished Stephen Skowronek's The Politics Presidents Make. All I can say at this point is "Wow". If one of the hallmarks of good history is the light it sheds on the present, this book is outstanding indeed.

I've talked about it a little in a couple of previous posts, but I think I'm going to expand on that considerably sometime soon. Watch this space.

Ramble, Part 23: Breaking the Bounds

There is, no doubt, much more to be said about Descartes' impact on mathematics, but I'll confine myself to one more subject. Euclid had restricted the attention of mathematics to the straight line and the circle, and though Apollonius had studied conic sections and Archimedes spirals, they sat uneasily within the Euclidean framework. Descartes, questioning these strictures as he questioned everything else, chose to break the bounds Euclid had imposed.

( Curves Mechanical and Geometrical )

Ramble Contents