The book also includes a record of a series of conversations between the author and Harvey Brooks (Professor of Technology and Public Policy Emeritus at Harvard) that addresses the present-day public policy implications of the historical interactions between the natural and the social sciences. A short but illuminating history of the terms "natural science" and "social science" concludes the book.
I. Bernard Cohen, the eminent historian of science and the principal elucidator of Franklin's scientific work, examines Franklin's scientific activities in fields ranging from heat to astronomy. He provides masterly accounts of the theoretical background of Franklin's science (especially his study of Newton), the experiments he performed, and their influence throughout Europe and the United States.
From the pyramids to mortality tables, Galileo to Florence Nightingale, a vibrant history of numbers and the birth of statistics. "Brief, lively, and highly entertaining."--William Grimes, "New York Times" The great historian of science I. B. Cohen explores how numbers have come to assume a leading role in science, in the operations and structure of government, in marketing, and in many other aspects of daily life. Consulting and collecting nu...
These are notions so basic to our view of life that we take them for granted. But in the seventeenth century they were revolutionary, heretical, even dangerous to the men who formed them. Culture, religion, and science had intertwined over the centuries to create a world view based on a stationary earth. Indeed, if the earth moved, would not birds be blown off the trees and would not an object thrown straight up come down far away?
Then came ...
This volume presents Professor Cohen's original interpretation of the revolution that marked the beginnings of modern science and set Newtonian science as the model for the highest level of achievement in other branches of science. It shows that Newton developed a special kind of relation between abstract mathematical constructs and the physical systems that we observe in the world around us by means of experiment and critical observation. The...
Thomas Jefferson was the only president who could read and understand Newton's Principia. Benjamin Franklin is credited with establishing the science of electricity. John Adams had the finest education in science that the new country could provide, including "Pnewmaticks, Hydrostaticks, Mechanicks, Staticks, Opticks." James Madison, chief architect of the Constitution, peppered his Federalist Papers with references to physics, chemistry, and t...
Wie konnte sich der Ausdruck >Revolution<, der ursprünglich immerhin ein Terminus für astronomische Vorgänge, Umläufe oder Umdrehungen von Himmelskörpern, gewesen war, in einen Begriff der politischen Macht- und Herrschaftsgeschichte verwandeln? Und wie kam es dazu, dass dieser gesellschaftspolitische Revolutionsbegriff wiederum auf die Naturwissenschaften und deren Erkenntnisgeschichte angewandt wurde? Ist es überhaupt legitim, den Begriff de...