Affinity That Elusive Dream

Author : Mi Gyung Kim
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 634 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2008-01-25
Category : Technology & Engineering
ISBN : 026225784X

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Affinity, That Elusive Dream by Mi Gyung Kim Pdf

In the eighteenth century, chemistry was transformed from an art to a public science. Chemical affinity played an important role in this process as a metaphor, a theory domain, and a subject of investigation. Goethe's Elective Affinities, which was based on the current understanding of chemical affinities, attests to chemistry's presence in the public imagination. In Affinity, That Elusive Dream, Mi Gyung Kim restores chemical affinity to its proper place in historiography and in Enlightenment public culture. The Chemical Revolution is usually associated with Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, who introduced a modern nomenclature and a definitive text. Kim argues that chemical affinity was erased from historical memory by Lavoisier's omission of it from his textbook. She examines the work of many less famous French chemists (including physicians, apothecaries, metallurgists, philosophical chemists, and industrial chemists) to explore the institutional context of chemical instruction and research, the social stratification that shaped theoretical discourse, and the crucial shifts in analytic methods. Apothecaries and metallurgists, she shows, shaped the main theory domains through their innovative approach to analysis. Academicians and philosophical chemists brought about two transformative theoretical moments through their efforts to create a rational discourse of chemistry in tune with the reigning natural philosophy. The topics discussed include the corpuscular (Cartesian) model in French chemistry in the early 1700s, the stabilization of the theory domains of composition and affinity, the reconstruction of French theoretical discourse in the middle of the eighteenth century, the Newtonian languages that plagued the domain of affinity just before the Chemical Revolution, Guyton de Morveau's program of affinity chemistry, Lavoisier's reconstruction of the theory domains of chemistry, and Berthollet's path as an affinity chemist.

Author : Mary Terrall
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 419 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2006-05-05
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780226793627

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The Man Who Flattened the Earth by Mary Terrall Pdf

Self-styled adventurer, literary wit, philosopher, and statesman of science, Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (1698-1759) stood at the center of Enlightenment science and culture. Offering an elegant and accessible portrait of this remarkable man, Mary Terrall uses the story of Maupertuis's life, self-fashioning, and scientific works to explore what it meant to do science and to be a man of science in eighteenth-century Europe. Beginning his scientific career as a mathematician in Paris, Maupertuis entered the public eye with a much-discussed expedition to Lapland, which confirmed Newton's calculation that the earth was flattened at the poles. He also made significant, and often intentionally controversial, contributions to physics, life science, navigation, astronomy, and metaphysics. Called to Berlin by Frederick the Great, Maupertuis moved to Prussia to preside over the Academy of Sciences there. Equally at home in salons, cafés, scientific academies, and royal courts, Maupertuis used his social connections and his printed works to enhance a carefully constructed reputation as both a man of letters and a man of science. His social and institutional affiliations, in turn, affected how Maupertuis formulated his ideas, how he presented them to his contemporaries, and the reactions they provoked. Terrall not only illuminates the life and work of a colorful and important Enlightenment figure, but also uses his story to delve into many wider issues, including the development of scientific institutions, the impact of print culture on science, and the interactions of science and government. Smart and highly readable, Maupertuis will appeal to anyone interested in eighteenth-century science and culture. “Terrall’s work is scholarship in the best sense. Her explanations of arcane 18th-century French physics, mathematics, astronomy, and biology are among the most lucid available in any language.”—Virginia Dawson, American Historical Review Winner of the 2003 Pfizer Award from the History of Science Society

Author : Anonim
Publisher : PediaPress
Page : 489 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2024-05-22
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 8210379456XXX

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Chemistry by Anonim Pdf

Author : Libb Thims
Publisher : Lulu.com
Page : 434 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2007-09-01
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781430328407

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Human Chemistry (Volume Two) by Libb Thims Pdf

Volume two begins with Goethe's theories of affinities, i.e. the chemical reaction view of human life in 1809. This is followed by the history of how the thermodynamic (1876) and quantum (1905) revolutions modernized chemistry such that affinity (the 'force' of reaction) is now viewed as a function of thermodynamic 'free energy' (reaction spontaneity) and quantum 'valency' (bond stabilities). The composition, energetic state, dynamics, and evolution of the human chemical bond A?B is the centerpiece of this process. The human bond is what gives (yields) and takes (absorbs) energy in life. The coupling of this bond energy, driven by periodic inputs of solar photons, thus triggering activation energies and entropies, connected to the dynamical work of life, is what quantifies the human reaction process. This is followed by topics including mental crystallization, template theory, LGBT chemistry, chemical potential, Le Chatelier's principle, Muller dispersion forces, and human thermodynamics.

Author : Karen Hunger Parshall,Michael T. Walton,Bruce T. Moran
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 462 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2015-05-25
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781612481357

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Bridging Traditions by Karen Hunger Parshall,Michael T. Walton,Bruce T. Moran Pdf

Bridging Traditions explores the connections between apparently different zones of comprehension and experience—magic and experiment, alchemy and mechanics, practical mathematics and geometrical mysticism, things earthy and heavenly, and especially science and medicine—by focusing on points of intersection among alchemy, chemistry, and Paracelsian medical philosophy. In exploring the varieties of natural knowledge in the early modern era, the authors pay tribute to the work of Allen Debus, whose own endeavors cleared the way for scholars to examine subjects that were once snubbed as suitable only to the refuse heap of the history of science.

Author : Emma Tobin,Chiara Ambrosio
Publisher : Springer
Page : 80 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2016-05-26
Category : Science
ISBN : 9783319298931

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Theory Choice in the History of Chemical Practices by Emma Tobin,Chiara Ambrosio Pdf

This collection of essays examines the question of theory from the perspective of the history of chemistry. Through the lens of a number of different periods, the authors provide a historical analysis of the question of theory in the history of chemical practice. The consensus picture that emerges is that the history of science tells us a much more complex story about theory choice. A glimpse at scientific practice at the time shows that different, competing as well as non-competing, theories were used in the context of the scientific practice at the various times and sometimes played a pivotal pedagogical role in training the next generation of chemists. This brief brings together a history of chemical practice, and in so doing reveals that theory choice is conceptually more problematic than was originally conceived. This volume was produced as part of the Ad HOC chemistry research group hosted by University College London and University of Cambridge.

Author : Sean P. Harvey
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 349 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2015-01-05
Category : History
ISBN : 9780674289932

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Native Tongues by Sean P. Harvey Pdf

Exploring the morally entangled territory of language and race in 18th- and 19th-century America, Sean Harvey shows that whites’ theories of an “Indian mind” inexorably shaped by Indian languages played a crucial role in the subjugation of Native peoples and informed the U.S. government’s efforts to extinguish Native languages for years to come.

Author : Julia Jorati
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 337 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2021-05-18
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780190925543

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Powers by Julia Jorati Pdf

Why does a wine glass break when you drop it, whereas a steel goblet does not? The answer may seem obvious: glass, unlike steel, is fragile. This is an explanation in terms of a power or disposition: the glass breaks because it possesses a particular power, namely fragility. Seemingly simple, such intrinsic dispositions or powers have fascinated philosophers for centuries. A power's central task is explaining why a thing changes in the ways that it does, rather than in other ways: powers should explain why an acorn turns into an oak tree, not a sunflower, or why fire burns wood, and wood can catch fire. This volume examines the twists and turns of the fascinating history of a difficult philosophical concept, focusing on the metaphysical sense of "powers"--that is, the powers that are invoked in the explanation of natural changes and activities. Scholars probe the views of thinkers from antiquity to the present day: Anaxagoras, Plato, the Stoics, Abelard, Anselm, Henry of Ghent, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Margaret Cavendish, Mary Shepherd, Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and numerous others. In addition, the volume contains four short reflection essays that examine the concept of powers from the perspective of disciplines other than philosophy, namely history of music, West African religions, history of chemistry, and history of art. The history of philosophy brims with controversies surrounding the concept of power, and these controversies have not diminished--particularly as potentialities or powers see a revival in contemporary analytic metaphysics. Hence, telling the history of philosophical theories of powers means exploring the trajectory of a concept whose importance to the past and present of philosophy can hardly be overstated.

Author : Gideon Manning
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 259 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2012-06-22
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9789004218703

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Matter and Form in Early Modern Science and Philosophy by Gideon Manning Pdf

Bringing together an international team of historians of science and philosophy to discuss the fate of matter and form, this volume shows how disputes about matter and form spurred innovation as well as conservatism in early modern science and philosophy.

Author : Manuel DeLanda
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 246 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2015-05-21
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781472591845

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Philosophical Chemistry by Manuel DeLanda Pdf

Philosophical Chemistry furthers Manuel DeLanda's revolutionary intervention in the philosophy of science and science studies. Against a monadic and totalizing understanding of science, DeLanda's historicizing investigation traces the centrality of divergence, specialization and hybridization through the fields and subfields of chemistry. The strategy followed uses a series of chemical textbooks, separated from each other by fifty year periods (1750, 1800, 1850, and 1900), to follow the historical formation of consensus practices. The three chapters deal with one subfield of chemistry in the century in which it was developed: eighteenth-century inorganic chemistry, nineteenth-century organic chemistry, and nineteenth-century physical chemistry. This book creates a model of a scientific field capable of accommodating the variation and differentiation evident in the history of scientific practice. DeLanda proposes a model that is made of three components: a domain of phenomena, a community of practitioners, and a set of instruments and techniques connecting the community to the domain. Philosophical Chemistry will be essential reading for those engaged in emergent, radical and contemporary strands of thought in the philosophy of science and for those scholars and students who strive to practice a productive dialogue between the two disciplines.

Author : Joel Faflak,Richard C. Sha
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 275 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2014-03-13
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781107052390

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Romanticism and the Emotions by Joel Faflak,Richard C. Sha Pdf

The first essay collection to examine emotion across the span of Romantic literature and thought, in light of new scholarship.

Author : Gábor Bíró
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 305 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2021-11-29
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781000476965

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Humanity and Nature in Economic Thought by Gábor Bíró Pdf

Humanity and Nature in Economic Thought: Searching for the Organic Origins of the Economy argues that organic elements seen as incompatible with rational homo economicus have been left out of, or downplayed in, mainstream histories of economic thought. The chapters show that organic aspects (that is, aspects related to sensitive, cognitive or social human qualities) were present in the economic ideas of a wide range of important thinkers including Hume, Smith, Malthus, Mill, Marshall, Keynes, Hayek and the Polanyi brothers. Moreover, the contributors to this thought-provoking volume reveal in turn that these aspects were crucial to how these key figures thought about the economy. This stimulating collection of essays will be of interest to advanced students and scholars of the history of economic thought, economic philosophy, heterodox economics, moral philosophy and intellectual history.

Author : John G McEvoy
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2015-10-06
Category : History
ISBN : 9781317324010

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The Historiography of the Chemical Revolution by John G McEvoy Pdf

This study offers a critical survey of past and present interpretations of the Chemical Revolution designed to lend clarity and direction to the current ferment of views.

Author : Jonathan Simon
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 196 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2016-04-08
Category : History
ISBN : 9781317168072

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Chemistry, Pharmacy and Revolution in France, 1777-1809 by Jonathan Simon Pdf

This book explores the history of pharmacy in France and its relationship to the discipline of chemistry as it emerged at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It argues that an appreciation of the history of pharmacy is essential to a full understanding of the constitution of modern science, in particular the discipline of chemistry. As such, it provides a novel interpretation of the chemical revolution (c.1770-1789) that will, no doubt, generate much debate on the place of the chemical arts in this story, a question that has hitherto lacked sufficient scholarly reflection. Furthermore, the book situates this analysis within the broader context of the French Revolution, arguing that an intimate and direct link can be drawn between the political upheavals and our vision of the chemical revolution. The story of the chemical revolution has usually been told by focusing on the small group of French chemists who championed Lavoisier's oxygen theory, or else his opponents. Such a perspective emphasises competing theories and interpretations of critical experiments, but neglects the challenging issue of who could be understood as practising chemistry in the eighteenth century. In contrast, this study traces the tradition of pharmacy as a professional pursuit that relied on chemical techniques to prepare medicines, and shows how one of the central elements of the chemical revolution was the more or less conscious disassociation of the new chemistry from this ancient chemical art.

Author : Lawrence M. Principe
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 481 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2020-10-09
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780226700816

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The Transmutations of Chymistry by Lawrence M. Principe Pdf

This book reevaluates the changes to chymistry that took place from 1660 to 1730 through a close study of the chymist Wilhelm Homberg (1653–1715) and the changing fortunes of his discipline at the Académie Royale des Sciences, France’s official scientific body. By charting Homberg’s remarkable life from Java to France’s royal court, and his endeavor to create a comprehensive theory of chymistry (including alchemical transmutation), Lawrence M. Principe reveals the period’s significance and reassesses its place in the broader sweep of the history of science. Principe, the leading authority on the subject, recounts how Homberg’s radical vision promoted chymistry as the most powerful and reliable means of understanding the natural world. Homberg’s work at the Académie and in collaboration with the future regent, Philippe II d’Orléans, as revealed by a wealth of newly uncovered documents, provides surprising new insights into the broader changes chymistry underwent during, and immediately after, Homberg. A human, disciplinary, and institutional biography, The Transmutations of Chymistry significantly revises what was previously known about the contours of chymistry and scientific institutions in the early eighteenth century.