|
''The Dynamics of An Asteroid'' is a fictional book by Professor James Moriarty, the implacable foe of Sherlock Holmes. The book is described by author Arthur Conan Doyle in "The Valley of Fear" (written in 1914, but set in 1888) when Sherlock Holmes, speaking of Professor Moriarty, states: With this class of talent, Professor Moriarty evoked the profound respect of Sherlock Holmes, one of the few opponents to do so (Irene Adler being another.) Doyle also portrayed Professor Moriarty as the author of "a treatise on the binomial theorem", written when he was only 21 years of age. In addition to covering a completely different topic, it must have been quite a bit more accessible, since it got him a position as a chair of mathematics at a provincial university. ==Related real works== In 1809, Carl Friedrich Gauss wrote a ground-breaking treatise on the dynamics of an asteroid (1 Ceres). However, it was understood immediately〔Donald Teets, Karen Whitehead, 1999, ''(The Discovery of Ceres: How Gauss Became Famous )'', Mathematics Magazine, Vol. 72, No. 2 (Apr., 1999), pp. 83-93〕 and his method is still used today (see Gauss' Method). Two decades before Arthur Conan Doyle's writing, the Canadian-American dynamic astronomer Simon Newcomb had published a series of books analyzing motions of planets in the solar system.〔Marsden, B. (1981) "Newcomb, Simon" in Gillespie, C.C. (ed.) (1981). Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 10. New York: Charles Screibner's Sons. pp. 33–36. ISBN 0-684-16970-3.〕 The notoriously spiteful Newcomb could have been an inspiration for Professor Moriarty.〔Schaefer, B. E., 1993, (Sherlock Holmes and some astronomical connections ), Journal of the British Astronomical Association, vol.103, no.1, p.30-34.〕 An example of mathematics too abstruse to be criticized is the letters of Srinivasa Ramanujan, sent to several mathematicians at the University of Cambridge in 1913.〔, p. 168.〕 Only one of these mathematicians, G. H. Hardy, even recognized their merit. Despite being experts in the branches of mathematics used, he and J.E. Littlewood added that many of them "defeated me completely; I had never seen anything in the least like them before." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Dynamics of an Asteroid」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|