Originally posted by sonhouse
I was surprised to learn the correct pronunciation, of principia, it is prin KIP eeah. I had been pronouncing it prin SIP eah. Great book, but I am going to wait till they make it into a movie....

That is interesting, I didn't that. You'd think it would be pronounced the same as principal.

Originally posted by Tygert
That is interesting, I didn't that. You'd think it would be pronounced the same as principal.

We had a physicist/math guru genius type working for our company once, Malcom Lines, who wrote a book called 'a number for your thoughts' which caused Isaac Asimov to write to him and they became pen pals till Isaac died. He was the one pointed out the correct pronunciation. That book is interesting, it showed that you could have a number system based on negative numbers! Instead of base 2, like binary, you could have base MINUS 2 or minus 12 or any other digit just like positive number bases.

That is what tickled the imagination of Isaac Asimov.

He wrote a lot of books, including 'on the shoulders of giants' after that famous saying by Isaac Newton.

He also has real scientific books out too, not for popular science readers.

Originally posted by Tygert
Yeah right. Although if you want to learn calculus further then read the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton. It really helped me. Also, got to Khanacademy.com. It is where I learn extra maths in my spare time.

I will leave you alone now. Only because you pointed me to that website...