History of science Books

Book SynopsisDoes the universe embody beautiful ideas?   Artists as well as scientists throughout human history have pondered this “beautiful question.” With Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek as your guide, embark on a voyage of related discoveries, from Plato and Pythagoras up to the present. Wilczek’s groundbreaking work in quantum physics was inspired by his intuition to look for a deeper order of beauty in nature. This is the deep logic of the universe—and it is no accident that it is also at the heart of what we find aesthetically pleasing and inspiring.   Wilczek is hardly alone among great scientists in charting his course using beauty as his compass. As he reveals in A Beautiful Question, this has been the heart of scientific pursuit from Pythagoras and the ancient belief in the music of the spheres to Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, and into the deep waters of twentieth-century physics. Wilczek brings us right to the edge of knowledge today, where the core insights of even the craziest quantum ideas apply principles we all understand. The equations for atoms and light are almost the same ones that govern musical instruments and sound; the subatomic particles that are responsible for most of our mass are determined by simple geometric symmetries.   Gorgeously illustrated, A Beautiful Question is a mind-shifting book that braids the age-old quest for beauty and the age-old quest for truth into a thrilling synthesis. It is a dazzling and important work from one of our best thinkers, whose humor and infectious sense of wonder animate every page. Yes: The world is a work of art, and its deepest truths are ones we already feel, as if they were somehow written in our souls.

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Book SynopsisGenius Inventions gives readers an insight into the events, people and histories behind technological and scientific developments that have helped shape modern civilization. Table of ContentsAncient Inventions • The Islamic World • Printing • Renaissance Science • Telescopes and Microscopes • Submarines • The Age of Electricity • Steam Power • Photography • The Railways • Electromagnetism • The Mechanical Computer • Antiseptic • The Motor Car • The Light Bulb • The Telephone • Affordable Photography • Alternating Current Motor • Motion Pictures • Powered Flight • Radio • The Haber-Bosch Process • Television • The Helicopter • Rockets • Digital Computers • Immunosuppressive and Antiviral Drugs • The Internet.

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Book SynopsisThis reference work describes more than 75 experiments, inventions, and discoveries of the period, as well as the scientists,Table of ContentsSeries Foreword Introduction A Short Background and History Astronomy Geography and Exploration Biological Sciences: Botany and Zoology Medicine, Disease, and Health Mathematics Physics and Chemistry Inventions and Innovations Weapons and War Glossary Selected Bibliography Index of Names and Subjects

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Book SynopsisTells the remarkable lives of the pioneers of science from Galileo and Newton, Faraday and Darwin, Pasteur and Marie Curie, to Einstein, Freud, Turing, and Crick and Watson. This title features articles that offer an account of the lives and personalities behind the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all time.Trade Review'The human face of scientific breakthroughs from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries is spotlit in this sumptuously illustrated volume.… a sampler of the driven, complex, fascinating characters who fomented scientific revolutions' - Nature'This excellent celebration of the evolution of science over the centuries should be of broad interest to scientists and non-scientists alike - it will also be a wonderful stimulus to young people thinking about a career in science' - The LancetTable of ContentsUniverse: Nicolaus Copernicus • Johannes Kepler • Galileo Galilei • Isaac Newton • Michael Faraday • James Clerk Maxwell • Albert Einstein • Edwin Powell Hubble • Earth: James Hutton • Charles Lyell • Alexander von Humboldt • Alfred Wegener • Molecules and Matter: Robert Boyle • Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier • John Dalton • Dmitri Mendeleev • August Kekulé • Dorothy Crowfoot • Hodgkin Chandrasekhara • Venkata Raman • Inside the Atom: Marie Curie and Pierre Curie • Ernest Rutherford • Niels Bohr • Linus Carl Pauling • Enrico Fermi • Hideki Yukawa • Life: Carl Linnaeus • Jan IngenHousz • Charles Darwin • Gregor Mendel • Jan Purkinje • Santiago Ramón y Cajal • Francis Crick and James Watson • Body and Mind: Andreas Vesalius • William Harvey • Louis Pasteur • Francis Galton • Sigmund Freud • Alan Turing • John von Neumann • Louis Leakey and Mary Leakey

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Book SynopsisThis engrossing and entertaining scientific history includes the story of Glasgow's Big Bang' of 1863, the controversy over Astronomer Royal for Scotland' and a historical survey of the eight observatories that once populated Glasgow.Table of ContentsChapter 1: Glasgow Astronomy; Chapter 2: Some Early Astronomy; Chapter 3: Establishing Astronomy; Chapter 4: The Wilsons; Chapter 5: The Early Nineteenth Century; Chapter 6: A Professor of Eloquence; Chapter 7: The Glory of Glasgow; Chapter 8: Time is of the Essence; Chapter 9: The Turn of The Century; Chapter 10: The Astronomical Society of Glasgow; Chapter 11: University Gardens; Chapter 12: To The New Millennium.

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Book Synopsis2003 Paul Bunge Prize of the Hans R. Jenemann Foundation for the History of Scientific InstrumentsJudging the brightness and color of light has long been contentious. Alternately described as impossible and routine, it was beset by problems both technical and social. How trustworthy could such measurements be? Was the best standard of intensity a gas lamp, an incandescent bulb, or a glowing pool of molten metal? And how much did the answers depend on the background of the specialist?A History of Light and Colour Measurement: Science in the Shadows is a history of the hidden workings of physical science-a technical endeavor embedded in a social context. It argues that this undisciplined subject, straddling academia, commerce, and regulation, may be typical not only of 20th century science, but of its future.Attracting scientists, engineers, industrialists, and artists, the developing subject produced a new breed of practitioners having mixed provenance. The new mTrade Review"This well-written book will be of interest to a broad audience. Historians of science will find in it a detailed account of the evolution of light measurement, and a description of the peripheral science concept and analytical tool which deserves consideration and further development. Researchers and engineers working in the field of radiometry, photometry, and color will surely find many points of interest in the history of optics will certainly enjoy a pleasant read."-Salvador X. Bara, Optics & Photonics News, May 2003 "This is a fine book which I recommend for reading and reference. The colour pictures and optical illusions make it the sort of physics book to leave on the coffee table and dip into. The look and feel of it will not put off a nonphysicist. Tell the librarian to get at least two copies for the library so that they can put them in both the photography and the physics sections so that both groups of students can find it." -Physics Education "The reading of this book is easy and very pleasant. It provides not only a lot of interesting information on the various techniques for light and colour measurement used in the past, but also and mainly, clear explanations on the causes and the ways of the development and evolutions of this specific field of metrology. A very large number of persons, organisations, events which have had major influences in the history of photometry, radiometry, and colorimetry are presented … This book can be recommended not only to the specialist in the field of light and colour measurement who wishes to understand the present situation of this specific field of metrology and to foresee its evolution based on its history, but also to everybody interested in metrology in general because most of the explanations given for photometry, radiometry, and colorimetry can be applied to other fields of metrology." -CIE NEWS, March 2002 "One of the other interesting aspects of this work is the way it traces the development of an industry from its beginnings, when gas lighting was the only serious form of man-made illumination, through to the firm establishment of electric lighting." -The Lighting Journal "This book is to be enjoyed, remembering that the burst of new understanding and new technology in the past fifty years has brought new vitality into photometry and colorimetry." -LR & T "Mr. Johnston's book helped answer questions I had on why the science of light measurement was so fragmented and why it got so little attention in scientific circles … I found it enjoyable … I was particularly impressed with the list of references and bibliography at the end of the book … the value of the references is worth the cost of the book." -Rolf S Bergman, COLOR Research and Application "The author has made an extensive and well-researched study of the history of this 'peripheral' but significant subject and has provided extensive footnotes and references … this is a thoroughly historical study of a neglected subject and its progress and manifold applications." -M. Eugene Rudd, Rittenhouse: Journal of the American Scientific Instrument Enterprise, Vol. 17, No. 2, December 2003 "An enourmous amount of hard-gained information has gone into this volume." -History of Physics Newsletter, Volume IX, No. 1 "…The book is recommended to those with an interest in the development of photometry and related fields." -David A. Goss, ISIS, 94: 4 (2003)Table of ContentsChapter 1 Introduction: Making Light Count. Chapter 2 Light as a Law-Abiding Quantity. Chapter 3 Seeing Things. Chaper 4 Careers in the Shadows. Chapter 5 Labs and Legislation. Chapter 6 Technology in Transition. Chapter 7 Disputing Light and Colour. Chapter 8 Marketing Photometry. Chapter 9 Militarising Radiometry. Chapter 10 An Undisciplined Science

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Book SynopsisWith his trademark brand of bulldozer-banter, Twitter legend James Felton guides you through the most morbidly fascinating facts you''ll then wish you could forget.Ever wondered why the chainsaw was invented?* How authorities dealt with a beached whale back in ye olde days of 1970?** Or what being a human decanter entails?*** Then you''ve come to the right place!Within these pages you''ll find the maddest, strangest and downright grossest stories from history, nature and science that you don''t want to know. (Except secretly you really do, you masochistic, beastly person you.) Illustrated, painfully funny and drop-your-jaw ridiculous, this is trivia from the cesspit of time that you won''t be able to stop reading once you start.*To aid childbirth.**They exploded it with 100 times too much dynamite and rained blubber down on unsuspecting people and buildings.***Decency prevents us from answering this one here. You''ll have to buy the book to fin

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Book SynopsisGroundbreaking biography of Galileo, one of the greatest scientists and religious heretics in historyTrade ReviewMichael White's energetic life of a 17th-century italian astronomer who first discovered the moons of Jupiter adds a new twist to Galileo's persecution at the hands of the Catholic church * OBSERVER *

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Book SynopsisThis book is the first substantial study in any language of one of revolutionary Russia''s most distinguished and controversial engineers - Iurii Vladimirovich Lomonosov (1876-1952). Not only does it provide an outline of his remarkable life and career, it also explores the relationship between science, technology and transport that developed in late tsarist and early Soviet Russia. Lomonosov''s importance extends well beyond his scientific and engineering achievements thanks to the rich variety and public prominence of his professional and political activities. His generation - Lenin''s generation - was inevitably at the forefront of Russian life from the 1910s to the 1930s, and Lomonosov took his place there as one of the country''s best known and ultimately notorious engineers. As well as an innovative engineer who campaigned to enhance the role of science, he played a major role in shaping and administering the Russian railways, and undertook several diplomatic and scientific mTrade Review'... an outstanding achievement, the story of a remarkable man’s life that also sheds light on important themes in twentieth-century Russian and world history. Engineer also may serve as an unsurpassed exemplar of meticulous research... an outstanding contribution to a number of fields, starting with Russian/Soviet history.' Revolutionary Russia '... [Heywood's] interpretations provide a rich and rather sympathetic portrait of this gifted engineer. Along the way, [he] offers some of the finest history of the Russian and Soviet railways available anywhere, supplemented by a very useful technical glossary.' Michael D. Gordin, Princeton University, in the Russian Review ’This is a thoroughly researched book which has much of interest to both historians of Russia and of railways, each of whom will find it a comfortable and enlightening read throughout. The publisher is to be commended on the design and production standards: the book is pleasant to handle, the well-chosen pictures are carefully reproduced, there are footnotes rather than endnotes, and sub-editorial slips are rare and minor.’ Slavonic and East European Review 'Anthony Heywood has written a model of a biography, admirably showing his decades of study of the well-documented life of Yuri Vladimirovich Lomonosov... the reader leaves with a strong sense of context as well as the person.' Technology and Culture '... Heywood has written a commendable work on an important, if largely too-long neglected, figure in the history of the development of the Russian railway system in the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, Iurii V. Lomonosov. He has managed to achieve this not only thanks to very careful and meticulous archival research in Britain, Europe and the USA, but also in being an objective and dispassionate reader of the voluminous diaries/correspondence left by Lomonosov, charting the many twists and turns in his professional as well as his personal life... Given the comprehensiveness of theTable of ContentsIntroduction; 1: The Making of a Russian Engineer; 2: First Steps in Railway Engineering; 3: Engineering Professor; 4: The Russian Revolution of 1905; 5: Applications of Science on the Russian Railways, 1908-1914; 6: War and Revolution, 1914-1917; 7: America and the Bolshevik Revolution; 8: Building the New Russia; 9: The Diesel Revolution; 10: 'A Free Soviet Citizen Abroad'; 11: Retirement and Remembrance

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Book SynopsisThis is the first of a pair of volumes by Jonathan Hodge, collecting all his most innovative, revisionist and influential papers on Charles Darwin and on the longer run of theories about origins and species from ancient times to the present. The focus in this volume is on the diversity of theories among such pre-Darwinian authors as Lamarck and Whewell, and on developments in the theory of natural selection since Darwin. Plato's Timaeus, the Biblical Genesis and any current textbook of evolutionary biology are all, it may well seem, on this same enduring topic: origins and species. However, even among classical authors, there were fundamental disagreements: the ontology and cosmogony of the Greek atomists were deeply opposed to Plato's; and, in the millennia since, the ontological and cosmogonical contexts for theories about origins and species have never settled into any unifying consensus. While the structure of Darwinian theory may be today broadly what it was in Darwin's own argumentation, controversy continues over the old issues about order, chance, necessity and purpose in the living world and the wider universe as a whole. The historical and philosophical papers collected in this volume, and in the companion volume devoted to Darwin's theorising, seek to clarify the major continuities and discontinuities in the long run of thinking about origins and species.Trade Review’An invaluable resource...’ Scientific and Medical Network 'This [...] collection of previously published papers by Jonathan Hodge not only brings to light a number of essays published in now hard to find places but also offers an unparalleled opportunity for tracing the historiographic trajectory of a leading Darwin historian over more than thirty years of intellectual achievement.' Metascience 'Incisive is a good word to describe Hodge’s famous scholarly style. As some of these papers and reviews demonstrate, he gets to the crux of any issue effortlessly, and often with astonishing directness. Who else can pack such brainy 'oomph' in the space of just a few pages, and in the unconventional form of a review article, instead of some long-winded monograph-length treatise? That, I suspect, is one reason the collection includes so much trenchant work... a splendid collection that should be required reading for anyone interested in Darwin, Darwinism and the history of evolutionary thought.' Science & EducationTable of ContentsContents: Introduction; The Very Long Run: Origins and species before and after Darwin; Canguilhem and the history of biology. Cosmogonies and Ontologies After Buffon: 2 Cosmologies (theory of the Earth and theory of generation) and the unity of Buffon's thought; Lamarck's science of living bodies; Lamarck's great change of mind; The history of the Earth, life and Man: Whewell and palaetiological science; The universal gestation of nature: Chamber's Vestiges and Explanations. The Structure and Content of Darwinian Theory Since Darwin: The structure and strategy of Darwin's 'long argument'; Darwin's theory and Darwin's argument; Discussion: Darwin's argument in the Origin; Knowing about evolution: Darwin and his theory of natural selection; Generation and the origin of species (1837-1937): a historiographical suggestion; Biology and philosophy (including ideology): a study of Fisher and Wright; Natural selection as a causal, empirical and probabilistic theory; Index.

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Book SynopsisThis is the second of a pair of volumes by Jonathan Hodge, collecting all his most innovative, revisionist and influential papers on Charles Darwin and on the longer run of theories about origins and species from ancient times to the present. The focus here is on Darwin himself and the development of his theories. Darwin is now such an iconic hero in our histories and such a commanding authority in our sciences that it has become a serious challenge to study him as just another disaffected medical student - or would-be vicar, aspiring zoology professor or gentleman of independent means -- thinking about sexual reproduction in animals and plants, about coral islands or about rock strata and fossils in post-Napoleonic Edinburgh, Cambridge, South America and London. But the challenge is one well worth taking up, as the papers here demonstrate, for such studies require us integrate the precise details of his inquiries with those larger scientific, metaphysical, religious and political issTrade Review’Since the centennial year for the Origin of Species was celebrated in 1959, there has been a magnificent outpouring of scholarship devoted to understanding Darwin's work and its intellectual context. M. J. S. Hodge has been a well-read and constructive member of the community of scholars working on that subject. His collected writings are unique, engaging, and permanently valuable contributions to scholarship.’ Aestimatio ’Darwinian historians looking for a self-check on where their industry stands will directly benefit from the retrospective offered here, and non-Darwinian historians may make good use of it as an example of how to be concerned about why we write history the way we do, and how we can do it better. That is one of Hodge's primary contributions to the Darwin industry: he is a watchdog of proper inquisitional diligence. These articles show Hodge in full service of that goal. In fact, Hodge's existence in that role may help explain how an 'industry' has sprung up around Darwin and nobody else: Darwin's own complexity, coupled with an almost unparalleled archive, not only invites but demands the constant revisiting of historiography that Hodge displays here.’ Bulletin of the Pacific Circle 'This [...] collection of previously published papers by Jonathan Hodge not only brings to light a number of essays published in now hard to find places but also offers an unparalleled opportunity for tracing the historiographic trajectory of a leading Darwin historian over more than thirty years of intellectual achievement.' Metascience 'Incisive is a good word to describe Hodge’s famous scholarly style. As some of these papers and reviews demonstrate, he gets to the crux of any issue effortlessly, and often with astonishing directness. Who else can pack such brainy 'oomph' in the space of just a few pages, and in the unconventional form of a review article, instead of some long-winded monograph-length treatise? That, I suspect, is one reason the colTable of ContentsContents: Introduction; Bibliography; Against 'revolution' and 'evolution'; Darwin and the laws of the animate part of the terrestrial system (1835-37): on the Lyellian origins of his zoonomical explanatory system; Darwin studies at work: a re-examination of 3 decisive years (1835-37); The notebook programmes and projects of Darwin's London years; The immediate origins of natural selection; Darwin as lifelong generation theorist; Darwin, species and the theory of natural selection; [Darwin's reception in] England; One Marxist view of Darwin's ideas; Darwin, the respectable, dissident, subversive gentleman; Index.

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Book SynopsisA study of a gifted scientist and visionary who embodies the spirit of adventure and discovery.Trade Review" A mediation inspired by Alexander von Humboldt' s journey in Mexico between in 1803- 04, Myron Echenberg has written an engaging, significant, and wide-ranging account. As a result of both diligent research and careful writing, Humboldt' s Mexico is an important contribution to both the study of Humboldt and to the examination of Mexico in the last years of its colonial experience." William Beezley, University of Arizona

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Book SynopsisThe science of geology was constructed in the decades around 1800 from earlier practices that had been significantly different in their cognitive goals. In the studies collected here Martin Rudwick traces how it came to be recognised as a new kind of natural science, because it was constituted around the idea that the natural world had its own history. The earth had to be understood not only in relation to unchanging natural laws that could be observed in action in the present, but also in terms of a pre-human past that could be reliably known, even if not directly observable and its traces only fragmentarily preserved. In contrast to this radically novel sense of nature's own contingent history, the earth's unimaginably vast timescale was already taken for granted by many naturalists (though not yet by the wider public), and the concurrent development of biblical scholarship precluded any significant sense of conflict with religious tradition. A companion volume, Lyell and Darwin, Geologists: Studies in the Earth Sciences in the Age of Reform, was published in 2005.Trade Review'The breadth of Rudwick's historical research is considerable... there is something here for everybody.' Geological Magazine 'It is of course impossible to do justice to the great variety of topics dealt with in this book. It is an excellent idea to republish these papers, which makes them easy to consult and compare. It is always stimulating to read Rudwick's well documented articles...' Archives of Natural History 'The articles in this book, which most of us have probably read in a scattered way, help us to refocus our appreciation of a most influential historian of science.' Earth Sciences HistoryTable of ContentsContents: Introduction; Bibliography; Earth-History and the History of Geology: Geologists' time: a brief history; The shape and meaning of earth history; Minerals, strata and fossils; The emergence of a new science; The emergence of a visual language for geological science, 1760-1840. Cuvier and Earth-History: Jean-André de Luc and nature's chronology; Cuvier and Brongniart, William Smith, and the reconstruction of geohistory; Researches on fossil bones: Georges Cuvier and the collecting of international allies; Georges Cuvier's paper museum of fossil bones. Geology in the Age of Lyell: Encounters with Adam, or at least the hyaenas; 19th-century visual representations of the deep past; A year in the life of Adam Sedgwick and company, geologists; Travel, travel, travel: geological fieldwork in the 1830s; The group construction of scientific knowledge: gentlemen-specialists and the Devonian controversy; The glacial theory; Index.

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Book SynopsisFrom the 90 or so articles he has published in the last two decades Professor Lloyd has chosen fifteen of the most important and influential to be reprinted in this collection. They tackle a wide range of problems in ancient Greek and Chinese thought, focussing especially on science but including also medicine, mathematics, philosophy and mythology. Three common themes recur: the ancients' own concern with disciplinary boundaries, their engagement in polemics, and the heterogeneity of different traditions - cultivating different styles of reasoning with different results - in ancient science. Alongside papers that deal with technical issues in the interpretation of our sources, others raise strategic questions to do with the institutional framework of ancient science, the role of literacy in its development, and the underlying ontological and epistemological presuppositions of different groups of ancient investigators. The collection closes with a study in which Lloyd sets out how he sees the further comparative study of ancient science developing. Two of the articles appear here for the first time in English. The others are reprinted in their original form. Supplementary bibliographies are added referring to the most recent scholarship on the issues discussed.Trade Review’These 15 articles [...] are now conveniently collected and easily accessible to students of Greco-Roman antiquity and the history of science... the volume is an invaluable collection, adhering to the mission of the Variorum Collected Studies Series... The brief introduction is most helpful in establishing the cohesiveness of the collection, and each essay follows from its predecessor. Lloyd's treatment of manifold questions always engages the reader, and each article rewards with insight and elucidation. The anthology stands not only as a useful synopsis of recent trends and discoveries in the history of Greek (and Chinese) science but also as a testament to the continuing guidance and contributions to the history of science and ideas by the indefatigable Geoffrey Lloyd.’ AestimatioTable of ContentsContents: Introduction. Greek Medicine: The transformations of ancient medicine; The definition, status and methods of the medical techne in the 5th and 4th centuries; Scholarship, authority and argument in Galen's Quod animi mores; Theories and practices of demonstration in Galen; Mathematics as a model of method in Galen. Greek Mathematics and Philosophy: The alleged fallacy of Hippocrates of Chios; The Meno and the mysteries of mathematics; Plato and Archytas in the seventh letter; Philosophy and medicine in Ancient Greece: cognitive models and their repercussions; The pluralism of intellectual life before Plato; The evolution of evolution: Greco-Roman antiquity and the origin of species. Cross-cultural Comparisons: Mythology: reflections from a Chinese perspective; Appearance and reality: Greek and Chinese comparisons and contrasts; Literacy in Greek and Chinese science: some comparative issues; Is there a future for ancient science?; Index.

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Book SynopsisExploring distinctive practices in the artisanal, mercantile, and governmental sites of London, Metropolitan Science offers a new perspective on the development of a scientific culture between the years 1600-1800.Beginning with the demographics of London in the 17th and 18th centuries, including its attraction of migrants, importance as a centre of empire, and the role of its institutions in government, the authors analyse how and why London was a unique site of scientific activity. Through the use of case studies, such as the Tower of London's Royal Mint, and the Livery Company Halls, this book examines the city's sites of exchange for knowledge and practice, and highlights the importance of both public and private spaces.With exploration of London's military and colonial history, the authors acknowledge how its port and maritime trade were not only central to growth and protection, but also facilitated the organisation, assessment, valuation, and purs

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Book SynopsisUroscopy - the diagnosis of disease by visual examination of the urine - played a very prominent role in early modern medical practice and in the lives of ordinary people. Widely considered as the most reliable way to diagnose diseases and pregnancies it was taught at the best universities. Leading physicians prided themselves on their mastery in this field. Countless medical writings were dedicated to uroscopy and artists represented it in hundreds of illustrations and paintings. Based on a wide range of textual and visual sources, such as autobiographies, court records, medical treatises and genre painting, this book offers the first comprehensive study of the place of uroscopy in early modern medicine, culture and society and of the - gradually changing - ways in which medical practitioners, lay persons and, last but not least, artists perceived and used it.Table of ContentsUroscopy in Early Modern Europe

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Book SynopsisThe significance of Robert Boyle (1627-91) as the most influential English scientist in the generation before Newton is now generally acknowledged, but the complexity and eclecticism of his ideas has also become increasingly apparent. This volume presents an important group of studies of Boyle by Michael Hunter, the leading expert on Boyle's life and thought. It forms a sequel to two previous books: Hunter's Robert Boyle: Scrupulosity and Science (2000) and The Boyle Papers: Understanding the Manuscripts of Robert Boyle (2007). Like them, it conveniently brings together material otherwise widely scattered in essay volumes and academic journals, while nearly a third of the book's content is hitherto unpublished. The collection opens with a substantial introduction that places the studies that follow in the context of existing studies of Boyle; appended to it is an annotated edition of Boyle's telling list of desiderata for science. The next three essays comprise a group of essentially Table of ContentsChapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 Boyle’s Early Intellectual Evolution; Chapter 3 Boyle and the Early Royal Society; Chapter 4; Chapter 5 The Disquieted Mind in Casuistry and Natural Philosophy; Chapter 6; Chapter 7; Chapter 8; Chapter 9 ‘Physica Peregrinans, or the Travelling Naturalist’;

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Book SynopsisWhat is the connection between Victorian writing and experiment? 'Artful Experiments' seeks to approach the field of literature and science in a way that is not so much centred on discourses of established knowledge as it is on practices of investigating what is no longer or not yet knowledge.

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Book SynopsisOur planet's elliptical orbit around the Sun and its billions-of-years existence are facts we take for granted, matters every literate high school student is expected to grasp. But humanity's struggle towards these scientific truths lasted millennia. Few of us have more than the faintest notion of the path we have travelled. Hubert Krivine tells the story of the thinkers and scientists whose work allowed our species to put an age to the planet and pinpoint our place in the solar system. It is a history of bold innovators, with a broad cast of contributors - not only Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler, but Halley, Kelvin, Darwin and Rutherford, among many others. Courage, iniquity, religious dogmatism, genius and blind luck all played a part. This was an epic struggle to free the mind from the constraints of cant, ideology and superstition. From this history, Krivine delineates an invaluable philosophy of science, one today under threat from irrationalism and the fundamentalist movements of East and West, which threaten both what we have attained at great cost and what we still have to learn. Scientific progress is not a sufficient condition for social progress; but it is a necessary one. The Earth is not merely a history of scientific learning, but a stirring defence of Enlightenment values in the quest for human advancement.Trade ReviewHubert Krivine's book is not only a fascinating history of how humanity came to understand the age and motion of the Earth - it is also an object lesson in the philosophy of science, which will upset religious fundamentalists and extreme-social-constructivist sociologists in equal measure. -- Alan Sokal, Professor of Physics at New York University and Professor of Mathematics at University College LondonKrivine's new book should be read, distributed, and defended: it outlines-allowing only for the uncertainties of science inquiry-how we know what we know about the earth. * Flavorwire *"An excellent book of popular science, written in a straightforward, accessible style." -- Jean Bricmont * Le Monde Diplomatique *Clear and fascinating. * La Quinzaine Litteraire *A wonderful reflection on science. * Mediapart *

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Book SynopsisMany cities around the world could claim to have a rich scientific history. However, between 1550 and 1800, London fostered its very own particular brand of scientific enquiry and practice. Home to the world-famous Royal Society - which boasts membership from figures such as Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton - London encouraged and facilitated scientific expansion. Science City explores London as a world-leading nexus of administration for ambitious scientific projects, as well as a place to obtain exceptional scientific equipment. The story of the city is richly illustrated with objects, artefacts and maps, many of which are from the Science Museum's extraordinary collection of scientific and mathematical instruments. Science City is published to accompany a new gallery at the Science Museum, scheduled to open in the autumn of 2019. This publication accompanies a new gallery, due to open at the Science Museum in Autumn 2019. The Science Museum has 662K followers on Twitter and 174k on Instagram.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Science City Chapter 1: A New Trade in London, 1550-1650 Chapter 2: Experiment and the City, 1660-1727 Chapter 3: Public Science in London, 1720-1790 Chapter 4: Science in a World City, 1745-1800 Chapter 5: Making Instruments Today: An Interview with Joanna Migdal Chapter 6: Experimental Science Today: The Role of the Royal Society Chapter 7: London Today: Inspiring Futures Endnotes Further reading Acknowledgements Author biographies Index

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Book SynopsisStephen Hawking was diagnosed with motor neurone disease at the age of 21 and was expected to live for only another two years. He went on to write books and deliver public lectures right up until his death at the age of 76 in 2018. Hawking achieved commercial success with several works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general. His book A Brief History of Time, a layman's guide to cosmology, appeared on the Sunday Times best-seller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks and sold more than 10 million copies. As Martin Rees, the cosmologist, astronomer royal and Hawking’s longtime colleague wrote, “His name will live in the annals of science; millions have had their cosmic horizons widened by his best-selling books; and even more, around the world, have been inspired by a unique example of achievement against all the odds — a manifestation of amazing willpower and determination.” In this concise and informative guide to Hawking’s life and work, his key scientific achievements – from gravitational singularities to quantum cosmology – are covered in an approachable and accessible way. This is a celebration of an icon of modern physics, who inspired generations of scientists and changed our understanding of the universe.

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