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Isaac Newton Derives Kepler's Ellipses from the Law of Universal Gravitation
In my post, Johannes Kepler and Inverse-Square Laws, I wrote that Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) was the first to propose an inverse-square law, for the…
2
Anthony Peratt Claims that Charles-Édouard Guillaume Also Theorized that the Universe is Electric
In the post, Kristian Birkeland Theorized that the Universe is Electric, I quoted Kristian Birkeland (1867-1917), writing about his 1902-1903 voyage to…
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John Plaice
6
Geoheliocentrism: The Dismissed Theory
One of the first things I did when I started my blog was to read, and write about, Galileo Galilei’s (1564-1642) book Dialogo sopra i due massimi…
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John Plaice
5

May 2025

The Self-Similar Nature of Cosmic Plasma
One of the underlying questions about the nature of the Universe is whether it is self-similar at different scales, i.e., do structures at different…
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John Plaice
11
The Fruitful Collaboration of André-Marie Ampère and Augustin-Jean Fresnel
In my post, Two Productive Research Programs in the Early 19th Century, the first of a three-part series on the replacement of Continental science by…
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John Plaice
2
John Wallis Introduces Index Notation for Exponentiation
I first wrote about the use of infinite series for the purposes of computation in my post Charles Matthew Whish Writes About Infinite Series Known to…
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John Plaice
1

April 2025

Pierre de Fermat Derived Snell's Law from his Principle of Least Time
After I wrote my post Pierre de Fermat's Principle of Least Time, I received two interesting comments which merit a detailed response.
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John Plaice
2
My Writings on William Gilbert
I have written a number of posts about William Gilbert (1544-1603) and his book De Magnete [On the Magnet], the first systematic study of magnetism.
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John Plaice
4
My Writings on Johannes Kepler
I have written a number of posts about Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), and might still have some more to write.
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John Plaice

March 2025

A Temperature for Space was Predicted Long Before the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation was Discovered and Decades Before the Big Bang…
I recently listened to a fascinating interview of André Koch Torres Assis on the DemystifySci YouTube channel, run by Anastasia Bendebury and Michael…
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John Plaice
2
Pierre de Fermat's Principle of Least Time
I recently came across a book just published by Jason Ross, entitled The Battle for Light: Fermat vs. Descartes: A Sourcebook on Pierre de Fermat’s…
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John Plaice
9
Does Georges Lemaître's Big Bang Imply Creation out of Nothing?
If we go to a planetarium in just about any part of the world, we will be given a spectacular show of the night sky, and there is a good chance that we…
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John Plaice
9
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