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The Language of Physics pp 31–62Cite as

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Vibrating Strings and Eighteenth-Century Mechanics

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Abstract

In the late 1740s an acrimonious dispute broke out between Jean le Rond d’Alembert and Leonhard Euler over the solution of the two-dimensional wave equation. The issues were the nature of legitimate mathematical functions, the definition of continuity, and differentiability. A description of this overheated exchange illustrates the relations between mathematics, metaphysics and experimental philosophy during the eighteenth century.1

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References

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  1. Department of History, SUNY-Stony Brook, 11794, Stony Brook, NY, USA

    Elizabeth Garber

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© 1999 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Garber, E. (1999). Vibrating Strings and Eighteenth-Century Mechanics. In: The Language of Physics. Birkhäuser, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1766-4_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1766-4_2

  • Publisher Name: Birkhäuser, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-7272-4

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