As huge as the Pantheon of Rome and as heavy as the Statue of Liberty, this magnificent instrument is so precisely built that its seventeen-foot mirror was hand-polished to a tolerance of 2/1,000,000 of an inch. The telescope's construction drove some to the brink of madness, made others fearful that mortals might glimpse heaven, and transfixed an entire nation. Ronald Florence weaves into his account of the creation of "the perfect machine" a stirring chronicle of the birth of Big Science and a poignant rendering of an America mired in the depression yet reaching for the stars.

    There appeared to be no way to reconcile the new theory of quantum mechanics with Einstein's theory of relativity. Several approaches had been tried and had failed. In the post-World War II period, four eminent physicists rose to the challenge and developed a calculable version of quantum electrodynamics (QED), probably the most successful theory in physics. This formulation of QED was pioneered by Freeman Dyson, Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger, and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, three of whom won the Nobel Prize for their work. In this book, physicist and historian Silvan Schweber tells the story of these four physicists, blending discussions of their scientific work with fascinating biographical sketches.Setting the achievements of these four men in context, Schweber begins with an account of the early work done by physicists such as Dirac and Jordan, and describes the gathering of eminent theorists at Shelter Island in 1947, the meeting that heralded the new era of QED. The rest of his narrative comprises individual biographies of the four physicists, discussions of their major contributions, and the story of the scientific community in which they worked. Throughout, Schweber draws on his technical expertise to offer a lively and lucid explanation of how this theory was finally established as the appropriate way to describe the atomic and subatomic realms.

    Yet fifty years later the first museums of natural history had appeared in Italy, dedicated to the marvels of nature. Italian patricians, their curiosity fueled by new voyages of exploration and the humanist rediscovery of nature, created vast collections as a means of knowing the world and used this knowledge to their greater glory.Drawing on extensive archives of visitors' books, letters, travel journals, memoirs, and pleas for patronage, Paula Findlen reconstructs the lost social world of Renaissance and Baroque museums. She follows the new study of natural history as it moved out of the universities and into sixteenth- and seventeenth-century scientific societies, religious orders, and princely courts. Findlen argues convincingly that natural history as a discipline blurred the border between the ancients and the moderns, between collecting in order to recover ancient wisdom and the development of new textual and experimental scholarship. Her vivid account reveals how the scientific revolution grew from the constant mediation between the old forms of knowledge and the new.

    Steven Shapin paints a vivid picture of the relations between gentlemanly culture and scientific practice. He argues that problems of credibility in science were practically solved through the codes and conventions of genteel conduct: trust, civility, honor, and integrity. These codes formed, and arguably still form, an important basis for securing reliable knowledge about the natural world.Shapin uses detailed historical narrative to argue about the establishment of factual knowledge both in science and in everyday practice. Accounts of the mores and manners of gentlemen-philosophers are used to illustrate Shapin's broad claim that trust is imperative for constituting every kind of knowledge. Knowledge-making is always a collective enterprise: people have to know whom to trust in order to know something about the natural world.

    

    Floris Cohen examines the body of work on the intellectual, social, and cultural origins of early modern science. Cohen critically surveys a wide range of scholarship since the nineteenth century, offering new perspectives on how the Scientific Revolution changed forever the way we understand the natural world and our place in it.Cohen's discussions range from scholarly interpretations of Galileo, Kepler, and Newton, to the question of why the Scientific Revolution took place in seventeenth-century Western Europe, rather than in ancient Greece, China, or the Islamic world. Cohen contends that the emergence of early modern science was essential to the rise of the modern world, in the way it fostered advances in technology.A valuable entrée to the literature on the Scientific Revolution, this book assesses both a controversial body of scholarship, and contributes to understanding how modern science came into the world.

    First published in French in 1994 and now translated into English, Laurent Mannoni's account projects a broad picture of the subject area now known as 'pre-cinema'. Starting from the earliest uses of the camera obscura in astronomy and entertainment, Mannoni discusses, among many other devices, the invention and early years of the magic lantern in the seventeenth century, the peepshows and perspective views of the eighteenth century, and the many weird and wonderful nineteenth-century attempts to recreate visions of real life in different ways and forms. This fully-illustrated and accessible account of a strange mixture of science, magic, art and deception introduces to an English-speaking readership many aspects of pre-cinema history from other European countries.

    The symbiotic perspective on evolution, which argues that higher species have evolved from a merger of two or more different kinds of organisms living together, is now clearly established with definitive molecular evidence demonstrating that mitochondria and chloroplasts have evolved from symbiotic bacteria. In telling the exciting story of an evolutionary biology tradition that has effectively challenged many key tenets of classical neo-Darwinism, Sapp sheds light on the phenomena, movements, doctrines, and controversies that have shaped attitudes about the scope and significance of symbiosis. Engaging and insightful, Evolution by Association will be avidly read by students and researchers across the life sciences.

    Hartlib (originally from Elbing) settled in England permanently from the late 1620s until his death in 1662. His aspirations formed a distinctive and influential strand in English intellectual life during those revolutionary decades. This volume reflects the variety of the theoretical and practical interests of Hartlib's circle and presents them in their continental context.

    Here Nye examines the continuing appeal of the technological sublime (a term coined by Perry Miller) as a key to the nation's history, using as examples the natural sites, architectural forms, and technological achievements that ordinary people have valued intensely.Technology has long played a central role in the formation of Americans' sense of selfhood. From the first canal systems through the moon landing, Americans have, for better or worse, derived unity from the common feeling of awe inspired by large-scale applications of technological prowess. American Technological Sublime continues the exploration of the social construction of technology that David Nye began in his award-winning book Electrifying America. Here Nye examines the continuing appeal of the technological sublime (a term coined by Perry Miller) as a key to the nation's history, using as examples the natural sites, architectural forms, and technological achievements that ordinary people have valued intensely.American Technological Sublime is a study of the politics of perception in industrial society. Arranged chronologically, it suggests that the sublime itself has a history - that sublime experiences are emotional configurations that emerge from new social and technological conditions, and that each new configuration to some extent undermines and displaces the older versions. After giving a short history of the sublime as an aesthetic category, Nye describes the reemergence and democratization of the concept in the early nineteenth century as an expression of the American sense of specialness.What has filled the American public with wonder, awe, even terror? David Nye selects the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, the Erie Canal, the first transcontinental railroad, Eads Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge, the major international expositions, the Hudson-Fulton Celebration of 1909, the Empire State Building, and Boulder Dam. He then looks at the atom bomb tests and the Apollo mission as examples of the increasing ambivalence of the technological sublime in the postwar world. The festivities surrounding the rededication of the Statue of Liberty in 1986 become a touchstone reflecting the transformation of the American experience of the sublime over two centuries. Nye concludes with a vision of the modern-day consumer sublime as manifested in the fantasy world of Las Vegas.

    They claim that these changes mark a distinct shift into a new mode of knowledge production which is replacing or reforming established institutions, disciplines, practices and policies.Identifying features of the new mode of knowledge production - reflexivity, transdisciplinarity, heterogeneity - the authors show how these features connect with the changing role of knowledge in social relations. While the knowledge produced by research and development in science and technology is accorded central concern, the

    Throughout the text are readings from the writings of scientists who contributed most significantly to the development of astronomy.

    Beneath these technical developments lay a profound reconceptualization of nature. The purpose of this book is to analyze the components of this reconceptualization, and to speculate on the influences that shaped it. It argues that the transformation of the conceptual model of the natural world c. 1260-1380 was strongly influenced by the rapid monetization of European society during the same period.

     Outrageous Practices, a highly acclaimed best-seller newly available in paperback, chronicles the history of a prejudiced health care establishment and shows how the current system remains captive to male-dominated medicine and research. The book examines how gender discrimination manifests itself in hospitals, physicians's and psychiatrists's offices, medical schools, research labs, government health-related agencies, and biomedical and pharmaceutical industries.KEY POINTS:o New paperback edition of a powerful book about gender bias in the medical establishment.o New preface by authors brings the issues up-to-date.

    Bursting with facts, serious and comic, the book describes the lives and work of more than fifty major innovators, with delightful illustrated references to hundreds more. A 'timeline' provides a glimpse into the lives and times of each of the inventors. Spanning a period of thousands of years - from the unknown man or woman who invented the wheel, to the research teams at work today on space technology or on Virtual Reality - Gillian Clements' book is a celebration of the ingenuity of people throughout history.Includes separate timelines on each spread and a glossary explaining all of the terms used in the book with diagrams and easy to follow language.

    First published in 1945 and thoroughly revised in 1971, this classic work by one of the history of medicine's most eminent scholars now returns to print in a new softcover edition.

    George Saliba argues that the medieval period, often called a period of decline in Islamic intellectual history, was scientifically speaking, a very productive period in which astronomical theories of the highest order were produced.Based on the most recent manuscript discoveries, this book broadly surveys developments in Arabic planetary theories from the eleventh century to the fifteenth. Taken together, the primary texts and essays assembled in this book reverse traditional beliefs about the rise and fall of Arabic science, demonstrating how the traditional "age of decline" in Arabic science was indeed a "Golden Age" as far as astronomy was concerned.Some of the techniques and mathematical theorems developed during this period were identical to those which were employed by Copernicus in developing his own non-Ptolemaic astronomy. Significantly, this volume will shed much-needed light on the conditions under which such theories were developed in medieval Islam. It clearly demonstrates the distinction that was drawn between astronomical activities and astrological ones, and reveals, contrary to common perceptions about medieval Islam, the accommodation that was obviously reached between religion and astronomy, and the degree to which astronomical planetary theories were supported, and at times even financed, by the religious community itself. This in stark contrast to the systematic attacks leveled by the same religious community against astrology.To students of European intellectual history, the book reveals the technical relationship between the astronomy of the Arabs and that of Copernicus. Saliba's definitive work will be of particular interest to historians of Arabic science as well as to historians of medieval and Renaissance European science.

    Artful Science reveals the exhilarating but paradoxical intertwining of enchantment with enlightenment in the early modern period. A cross-disciplinary guide to intellectual high and low life of the eighteenth century, Artful Science makes the case for the pedagogical opportunities inherent in an oral-visual culture. Barbara Stafford draws on an extraordinary range of historical sources and popular imagery, exploring from a new perspective the perceptual cognition that she so deftly analyzed in Body Criticism. Her important reinterpretation also casts many well-studied paintings as instances of an instructive art of demonstration. Artful Science opens by describing the evolution of mathematical recreations and their relationship to the middle class's increasing leisure time. Subsequent chapters focus on the problem of distinguishing legitimate science from virtuoso fraud; the public performance of experiments; and early attempts to create informative and attractive natural history exhibits. Throughout, Stafford emphasizes the concern for telling truth from fiction in a world of alluring technology. The enlighteners' relentless association of sensory evidence with deception led to the submergence of a tricking oral-visual culture by serious mass literacy drives, Stafford observes. Yet sophisticated teaching techniques and ingenious learning machines made abstractions concrete and appealing to ever-widening eighteenth-century audiences. With the modern computer graphics revolution always in view, Artful Science suggests fresh means for putting intelligence, enjoyment, and communicative power back into thinking with images.

    While he introduces the theory of relativity, Fritzsch teaches its sources, its workings, and the ways it has revolutionized our view of the physical world. An Equation That Changed the World dramatizes the importance of relativity, for the human race, and the survival of our planet."Fritzsch could not give the modern reader a more memorable introduction to the personalities and science of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein unless somehow he could find the keys to H. G. Wells' time machine. . . . Many readers will applaud Fritzsch for this lively but profoundly insightful book." —Booklist, starred review"[Fritzsch] has dreamed up a dialogue between the two great physicists, helped along by a fictional modern physicist. . . . The conversation builds up to an explanation of E=mc2, and on the way illuminates the important points where Newtonian and Einsteinian theory diverge." —David Lindley, New York Times Book Review