Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.
The discovery of the "artificial" elements that are heavier than uranium Jargon and mathematics is kept to a minimum, and the volumes includes a timeline, a glossary, and a bibliography, making The Chemical Element an ideal resource for students researching chemistry and the history and nature of the scientific understanding of the world around us.
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- Changing Role and Nature of Chemistry
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Ideas in Chemistry: A History of the Science
David M. Knight
Manufacturer: Rutgers University Press
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The Covenant with Black America
ASIN: 0813518369 |
Customer Reviews:
Changing Role and Nature of Chemistry.......2004-07-11
David Knight teaches the history of science at the University of Durham, England. In this book, Ideas in Chemistry (Rutgers University Press), Knight describes the changing nature of chemistry from the Renaissance to the present. We readers meet only a few chemical expressions and notations. (This is not a history of the classic experiments that shaped the development of chemistry.) Nonetheless, I suspect that few general readers unfamiliar with chemistry will remain engaged. Ideas in Chemistry will primarily interest students and teachers of chemistry, chemists, and other scientists.
This is the story of how chemistry has changed from an occult science to an independent, experimental science and finally to a supporting role to medicine, pharmacology, biology, geology, mineralogy, archeology, and other disciplines. Knight explores how early attempts to explain the findings of chemical experimentation through the mechanical models of Newtonian physics were less than satisfactory and for a period chemistry flourished as an independent, experimental science. But with the development of quantum theory (and quantum chemistry), physics emerged as the fundamental physical science. Chemistry today remains an empirical science, but its foundations are now rooted in physics.
The last four chapters are titled A Descriptive Classifying Science, A Teachable Science, A Reduced Science, and A Service Science. They explore the pervasive supporting role that chemistry plays today.
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Ideas in Chemistry: A History of the Science
David Knight
Manufacturer: Athlone Press
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ASIN: 0485121123 |
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A History of Chemistry
Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent , and
Isabelle Stengers
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0674396596 |
Book Description
From the earliest use of fire to forge iron tools to the medieval alchemists' search for the philosopher's stone, the secrets of the elements have been pursued by human civilization. But, as the authors of this concise history remind us, "disciplines like physics and chemistry have not existed since the beginning of time; they have been built up little by little, and that does not happen without difficulties." Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and Isabelle Stengers present chemistry as a science in search of an identity, or rather as a science whose identity has changed in response to its relation to society and to other disciplines. The authors--respected, prolific scholars in history and philosophy of science--have distilled their knowledge into an accessible work, free of jargon. They have written a book deeply enthusiastic about the conceptual, experimental, and technological complexities and challenges with which chemists have grappled over many centuries.
Beginning with chemistry's polymorphous beginnings, featuring many independent discoveries all over the globe, the narrative then moves to a discussion of chemistry's niche in the eighteenth-century notion of Natural Philosophy and on to its nineteenth-century days as an exemplar of science as a means of reaching positive knowledge. The authors also address contentious issues of concern to contemporary scientists: whether chemistry has become a service science; whether its status has "declined" because its value lies in assisting the leading-edge research activities of molecular geneticists and materials scientists; or whether it is redefining its agenda.
A History of Chemistry treats chemistry as a study whose subject matter, the nature and behavior of qualitatively different materials, remains constant, while the methods and disciplinary boundaries of the science constantly shift.
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- For chemists only
- A good historical look at the most important chemists
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Chemical Creativity: Ideas from the Work of Woodward, Hückel, Meerwein and Others
Jerome A. Berson
Manufacturer: Wiley-VCH
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ASIN: 3527297545 |
Book Description
Where are the origins of chemical ideas? How did the pioneers in chemistry recognize the fundamental intellectual issues of their time? What skills of reasoning and experiment did they use to solve these problemes? How did the circumstances of personality and competition influence their careers and scientific accomplishments? If we can answer these questions, we may be able to improve our own chances of success in research.
»This is a marvelous book of people and chemical ideas! The author, Jerry Berson, is known as a chemical stylist, a physical organic chemist possessed of the highest analytical powers. In a unique approach to the history of chemistry (indeed the history of science) he brings that style, as well as his insider's knowledge and a perceptive sensivity to the societal setting of chemists, to the analysis of some key chapters in modern organic chemistry.« Roald Hoffmann, Nobel Laureate
Customer Reviews:
For chemists only.......2000-01-07
Although it is an excellent book in many respects, it doesn't really tackle the whole issue of creativity. Non-chemists be warned! This book is intended for professional chemists and any non-chemists (or even lapsed chemists) will find much of this book is totally unreadable. A great pity.
A good historical look at the most important chemists.......1999-08-13
J. Berson touches on the most important and influential chemists of the history. Although a well written book, it did lack some detail and more recent discoveries using these influences. However, the book did contain enough information to keep the reader interested without getting too technical, ie. no Ph.D necessary to understand his work. I recomend this book as a creativity booster for those graduate students in chemistry who are still trying to find their way.
Amazon.com
Author Paul Strathern simply and emphatically describes Marie Curie--the pioneering scientist who coined the term "radioactivity"--as "the twentieth century's most exceptional woman." After reading this compact book's 99 pages, you'll likely be inclined to agree.
In the Madame Curie installment of The Big Idea biography series (see also Einstein and Relativity, Hawking and Black Holes), we learn how a young Polish woman managed to bring up two daughters as a single mother while still earning two Nobel prizes and ushering in post-Newtonian science. Strathern humanizes this secular saint, recounting her romances, struggles, and scandals, admirably defeating the cold portrayal she received in the 1938 biography penned by her daughter Eve (a skewed description, Strathern says, that depicted Curie as "one of the most perfectly boring women imaginable").
As with Strathern's other drive-by life stories, this lean little book is not exactly brimming with hard science, and the author's familiar tone doesn't always quite connect. Nonetheless, Curie and Radioactivity ably accomplishes what it sets out to: in less than an hour, you'll find yourself on a first-name basis with one of the century's most exceptional scientists--and women. --Paul Hughes
Book Description
Revealing the intensity, dedication, and determination of one of the century's most inspiring single working mothers, Curie and Radioactivity is for anyone curious about the "female Einstein, " and even more important, for all those who want to understand her groundbreaking contributions to nuclear physics -- contributions that ultimately cost her her life.
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Lavoisier--The Crucial Year: The Background and Origin of His First Experiments on Combustion in 1772 (Classics in the History and Philosophy of Science)
Henry Guerlac
Manufacturer: Routledge
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ASIN: 2881244041 |
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Before Henry Guerlac's book, we knew little about the reasons that led the great chemist Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier to discover the role of air in combustion. Henry Guerlac finds that this breakthrough that began the Chemical Revolution did not come ex nihilo, as many historians claim. Rather, it marked the culmination of research by British and French chemists, radically refashioned by Lavoisier and his disciples. Henry Guerlac portrays Lavoisier integrating Continental and British chemical traditions. Like New ton in physics and Darwin in biology, Lavoisier was a revolutionary. This work presents his in a vigorous and innovative light.
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What's the matter? This was no trivial question for Democritus, generally considered the father of the atom. Like his fellow philosophers in ancient Greece, he was gravely concerned with discovering the nature of the universe through reason and argument, and hence wanted to understand the basic composition of material things. His postulate, that there are minuscule, indivisible units of matter, was revolutionary and resisted by many scientists until the early 20th century.
The late Dr. Bernard Pullman, former professor of quantum chemistry at the Sorbonne, presents a challenging, broad-ranging history of this seemingly simple idea in The Atom in the History of Human Thought. The language is remarkably clear, thanks in part to the translation of Axel Reisinger; there are no awkward phrasings or unfamiliar idioms to puzzle the reader. Instead we are told the life story of an idea, one so basic to our modern understanding of the world as to seem almost obvious.
But, as Pullman shows us, it was not only resisted but actively suppressed for centuries. From the often-bizarre notions of the ancients (could the universe really be made only of water?) to the equally bizarre concepts of modern atomic theory (is your chair really composed almost entirely of empty space?), with occasional forays into the science of the Islamic and Hindu worlds, he shows many attempts to answer the most fundamental question in science and philosophy. With such a long and controversial history, it's little wonder that we still haven't set matter straight. --Rob Lightner
Book Description
The idea of the atom--the ultimate essence of physical reality, indivisible and eternal--has been the focus of a quest that has engaged humanity for 2,500 years. That quest is captured in The Atom in the History of Human Thought. Here is a panoramic intellectual history that begins in ancient Greece, ranges across the entire span of Western philosophy and science, and ends with the first direct visual proof of the atom's existence, just ten years ago. Bernard Pullman deftly captures the richness and depth of this remarkable debate, giving us not only the ideas of philosophers, church leaders, and scientists, but also the historical and social context from which these thoughts evolved. We have marvelous accounts of the work of such thinkers as Plato and Aristotle, Aquinas and Maimonides, Galileo and Descartes, Newton and Einstein--indeed, virtually every major philosopher of Western civilization, with excursions into the Hindu and Arab world--all presented against the backdrop of history. But perhaps most fascinating is the gradual shift in the book from a philosophical and religious perspective to a scientific perspective, especially in the 19th century, as science begins to dominate how humanity understands the world. Thus a book that begins with pre-Socratic philosophers such as Democritus and Empedocles ends with nuclear physicists such as Werner Heisenberg and Richard Feynman, and with a very different world view. Ably translated by Axel Reisinger, this is a vibrant look at humanity's search to understand the ultimate nature of physical reality, a quest that has spanned the entire course of Western civilization.
Customer Reviews:
handy overview of competing schools of thought.......2003-05-09
This book provides a nice survey of competing schools of thought, including nonwestern societies such as Hinduism and Islam. Occasionally a paragraph or sentence seems to contradict another nearby, as if the author, editor, and reviewers missed it. These might be resolved but that doesn't help the reader if the solution isn't apparent. After all, we read it to get the scoop, not to add on to our present confusions. Also, there is that maddening habit of providing translations from ancient sources that need further translation despite their appearance in English. This happens when the translator sees no need to stop, think, and either offer the reader something that makes sense or simply avoid the choice of translated material altogether. This habit is widespread and I did indeed expect to see it in Pullman's book too.
Only a Frenchman.......2002-05-18
could have written this opus on the history of atomic theory AND felt compelled to cite the views of both Nietzsche (the phenomenalist Antichrist) and Marx ("Hadrons of the World Unite"??). To round things out, there's even a quote from Levi-Strauss! To be sure, this is a flawed opus. Published posthumously in 1998 (the author died in 1996), the text has a hurried feel to it, as if compiled from notes by an anonymous editor. As a consequence, the coverage is as uneven as the chapter lengths variable. Chapter 6 ("Principles and Primordial Substances") consists of one very helpful figure with a one-paragraph description, together occupying the better part of a single page. The chapter on "Hindu Atomism" (much touted in the pages of the journal, Science) rightly attribues atomism to the Hindu Nyaya-Vaishisheka school. But it neglects the much more prominent place of atomism in Buddhism (with its doctrine of momentariness), devoting only 1/2 page (of 8 total!) to Buddhist thought. In contrast, the chapter on the 20th century takes up nearly 100 pages. On the whole, Western philosophy fares better; yet the hackneyed phrasing of Whitehead's famous quote about footnotes to Plato--"All of Western philosophy is but a long commentary on the writings of Plato" [p.49]--indicates that the translation leaves something to be desired. Still, the work does have its "moments." Part I on the Greek inception of atomic theory, 4 element theory, Platonic/Pythagorean modifications, and the Aristotelean arch-enemy (of undifferentiated substance and divinely impressed form) is excellent, as is Part IV, which focuses on the scientific developments of the 19th & 20th centuries. The intervening Parts II (the "dark ages") and III (Renaissance to Enlightenment) are tedious and unhelpful litanies of obscure names devoid of historical context. The 7-page chapter on Kant is particularly disappointing (nor does the author seem to recognize the strong similarity with Bohr's views). Ditto the naive comment that "a few philosophers such as Hume occasionally challenged the notion of causality." Had the author not intentionally dodged the fundamental problem of the relationship between "the mathematical structures produced by the human mind with the structure of phenomena of Nature" (p. 291), this book would have been far richer. Instead, like Epicurus, his true motivation is to extol the *moral* value of atomism in an accidental universe without purpose (cf. p. 212), and to debunk the Aristotelean/Catholic notion underlying transubstantiation of the Eucharist (p. 125). This partially explains his not infrequent lapses into Whiggism (cf. pp. 224, 233, 241). Still, there is not another work like this one. And although "the victory of the classical atomic theory proved short-lived...if it had ever materialized [p. 256, sic!]" the unfolding of the atomic vision of the universe, from the pre-Socratics to quantum uncertainty, makes an exhilirating story.
Excellent overview of pre-Socratic philosphy to modern chem........1999-07-25
Excellent overview from pre-Socratic philosphy/chemistry up to modern chemical concepts. Focus is primarily on the conceptual nature of theories and science and how the paradigms shift with new data. I thoroughly enjoy owning this book.
Good introduction to atomism.......1999-04-16
This book is an amazingly comprehensive overview of all aspects of atomism. I was quite surprised to see sections on Hindu and Arab atomism, information which I didn't even know had existed. Historical analysis is excellent, although Pullman seems to insert his own opinions inconsistently and sometimes inappropriately, and tends to be (perhaps somewhat unjustifiably) hostile to Christians and the later antiatomists. However, I would recommend this to anyone looking for a precise historical account. Any information that cannot be found in the book itself is referenced in the large Notes (bibliography, footnotes) section.
An illuminating tour de force of the development of the atom.......1999-04-01
Reading The Atom in the History of Human Thought is an enlightening experience to embark upon. Not only does it expouse one of our civilizations most cherished concepts in a stimulating way but helps to convey the excitement of revealing the atom that continues today. From the ancient Greeks to Hegel and Shopenhauer, the book reveals the many people of history who have helped to develop our modern notion of the atom which continues today. However, it does not simply retell the western story of the atom but goes to some measure to entail the ancient Arabics contribution in flourishing this most ancient of ideas. Although a bit tedious in parts, the often tough reading pays off towards the later part of the book when everthying falls into place. In many ways, the book serves to illuminate the many historical figures who have speculated about an indivisible entity who we now unfortunately remember mainly for the mainstream contribution. A tour de force that is worth the effort if you care the read. Highly enriching reading.
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Affinity and Matter (Classics in the History and Philosophy of Science)
Trevor Levere
Manufacturer: Routledge
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ASIN: 2881245838 |
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Trevor H. Levere is a professor at the Institute for theHistory and Philosophy of Science and Technology, Victoria College, University of Toronto.
Books:
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- How to Grow Fresh Air: 50 House Plants that Purify Your Home or Office
- How to Grow Fresh Air: 50 House Plants that Purify Your Home or Office
- Hydrophilic Polymer Coatings for Medical Devices
- Infrastructure for the Built Environment: Global Procurement Strategies
- Intermolecular and Surface Forces, Second Edition: With Applications to Colloidal and Biological Systems (Colloid Science)
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