Mathematics

Contents: (1) Historical Overview; & Descartes’s Perspectivist Sources; (2) Analysis of Refraction: Cartesian Light-Theory; & A Critical Evaluation; (3) The Foundations of Perspectivist Optics: Perspectivist Light-Theory; Quantization of Light; & Comparison with Descartes’s Theory of Light; (4) The Perspectivist Analysis of Refraction: Physical Model; Physical “Explanation” & The Final Cause; (5) Perspectivist Grounds of the Cartesian Proof: Mathematical Implications; From Cosines to Sines; & Descartes Revisited; (6) Cartesian Light-Theory as a Culmination; Toward a Kinetic Theory of Light; & Epistemological Consequences. App.: The Sine-Law Before Descartes; The Fermat-Descartes Controversy; & Kepler, Descartes & the Anaclastic. Illustrations.

Contents: (I) The Place of Practical Geometry in the Middle Ages: The Nature of Practical Geometry; Practical Geometry in Education; Theory and Practice in Geometry; and Practical Geometry and Practical Concerns; (II) The Contents of “Artis cuiuslibet consummatio” and the “Pratike de geometrie”; (III) Procedures in the Editions, Translations, and Commentary: Editing “Artis cuiuslibet consummatio”; Editing the “Pratike de geometrie”; Translating the Texts; and About the commentary; and (IV) English translation of “Arts cuiuslibet consummatio” and of the “Pratike de geometrie.” Selected Bibliography, Index of Latin Technical Terms, Index of Old French Technical Terms, and Index of Astronomical Parameters. Illus.

This is a print on demand edition of an important, hard-to-find publication. Illustration.

This is a print on demand edition of an important, hard-to-find publication.