"The sort of way in which physical sciences grow into a form capable of treatment by mathematical methods is illustrated by the history of the gradual growth of the science of electromagnetism. ...The Greeks knew that (Greek, electron) when rubbed would attract light and dry bodies. In 1600 A.D., Dr. Gilbert, of Colchester, published the first work on the subject in which any scientific method is followed. He made a list of substances possessing properties similar to those of amber; he must also have the credit of connecting, however vaguely, electric and magnetic phenomena. At the end of the seventeenth and throughout the eighteenth century knowledge advanced. Electrical machines were made, sparks were obtained from them; and the was invented, by which these effects could be intensified. Some organized knowledge was being obtained; but still no relevent mathematical ideas had been found out. Franklin, in the year 1752, sent a kite into the clouds and proved that thunderstorms were electrical. Meanwhile, from the earliest epoch (2634 B.C.) the Chinese had utilized the characteristic property of the needle, but do not seem to have connected it with any theoretical ideas."
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An Introduction to Mathematics
An Introduction to Mathematics, by Alfred North Whitehead and published in 1911, was intended for a general lay audience. The book touches upon the nature, unity and internal structure of mathematics and its applications toward describing and understanding natural phenamena. It foreshadows some points of Whitehead's later work in philosophy and metaphysics.
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