Author: Hasok Chang Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0195171276 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 305
Book Description
The author presents simple yet challenging epistemic and technical questions about temperature-measuring instruments, and the complex web of abstract philosophical issues surrounding them. He also shows that many items of knowledge we take for granted are in fact spectacular achievements obtained after a great deal of innovative thinking.
Author: Hasok Chang Publisher: ISBN: 9780199835003 Category : Interdisciplinary approach to knowledge Languages : en Pages : 304
Book Description
The author presents simple yet challenging epistemic and technical questions about temperature-measuring instruments, and the complex web of abstract philosophical issues surrounding them. He also shows that many items of knowledge we take for granted are in fact spectacular achievements obtained after a great deal of innovative thinking.
Author: Hasok Chang Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 940073932X Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 335
Book Description
This book exhibits deep philosophical quandaries and intricacies of the historical development of science lying behind a simple and fundamental item of common sense in modern science, namely the composition of water as H2O. Three main phases of development are critically re-examined, covering the historical period from the 1760s to the 1860s: the Chemical Revolution (through which water first became recognized as a compound, not an element), early electrochemistry (by which water’s compound nature was confirmed), and early atomic chemistry (in which water started out as HO and became H2O). In each case, the author concludes that the empirical evidence available at the time was not decisive in settling the central debates and therefore the consensus that was reached was unjustified or at least premature. This leads to a significant re-examination of the realism question in the philosophy of science and a unique new advocacy for pluralism in science. Each chapter contains three layers, allowing readers to follow various parts of the book at their chosen level of depth and detail. The second major study in "complementary science", this book offers a rare combination of philosophy, history and science in a bid to improve scientific knowledge through history and philosophy of science.
Author: Nigel Raab Publisher: BRILL ISBN: 9004292721 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 281
Book Description
In The Crisis from Within, Nigel Raab explores weaknesses that emerge when using interdisciplinary theories in historical analysis. With chapters that focus on knowledge, language, memory, imagining and inventing, and civil society, the analysis reveals how theoretical applications can be the source of interpretive confusion. By drawing from a global range of historical works, Nigel Raab demonstrates how this problem concerns all historical sub-fields. From science in the seventeenth century to communism in the twentieth century, theories often overdetermine analysis in a way the historian never intended. After the enthusiastic reception of theory for over a generation, The Crisis from Within argues that the time has come to pause and think seriously about how we wish to proceed with theory.
Author: Steven Caney Publisher: ISBN: 9780894800764 Category : Inventions Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
A project book for the would-be inventor with activities, a list of "contraptions" in need of invention, and the stories behind thirty-six existing inventions.
Author: Don S. Lemons Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 0262039397 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 192
Book Description
An account of the concepts and intellectual structure of classical thermodynamics that reveals the subject's simplicity and coherence. Students of physics, chemistry, and engineering are taught classical thermodynamics through its methods—a “problems first” approach that neglects the subject's concepts and intellectual structure. In Thermodynamic Weirdness, Don Lemons fills this gap, offering a nonmathematical account of the ideas of classical thermodynamics in all its non-Newtonian “weirdness.” By emphasizing the ideas and their relationship to one another, Lemons reveals the simplicity and coherence of classical thermodynamics. Lemons presents concepts in an order that is both chronological and logical, mapping the rise and fall of ideas in such a way that the ideas that were abandoned illuminate the ideas that took their place. Selections from primary sources, including writings by Daniel Fahrenheit, Antoine Lavoisier, James Joule, and others, appear at the end of most chapters. Lemons covers the invention of temperature; heat as a form of motion or as a material fluid; Carnot's analysis of heat engines; William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) and his two definitions of absolute temperature; and energy as the mechanical equivalent of heat. He explains early versions of the first and second laws of thermodynamics; entropy and the law of entropy non-decrease; the differing views of Lord Kelvin and Rudolf Clausius on the fate of the universe; the zeroth and third laws of thermodynamics; and Einstein's assessment of classical thermodynamics as “the only physical theory of universal content which I am convinced will never be overthrown.”
Author: John H. Gillespie Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0195357744 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 351
Book Description
This work provides a unified theory that addresses the important problem of the origin and maintenance of genetic variation in natural populations. With modern molecular techniques, variation is found in all species, sometimes at astonishingly high levels. Yet, despite these observations, the forces that maintain variation within and between species have been difficult subjects of study. Because they act very weakly and operate over vast time scales, scientists must rely on indirect inferences and speculative mathematical models. However, despite these obstacles, many advances have been made. The author's research in molecular genetics, evolution, and bio-mathematics has enabled him to draw on this work, and present a coherent and valuable view of the field. The book is divided into three parts. The first consists of three chapters on protein evolution, DNA evolution, and molecular mechanisms. This section reviews the experimental observations on genetic variation. The second part gives a unified treatment of the mathematical theory of selection in a fluctuating environment. The final two chapters combine the earlier assessments in a treatment of the scientific status of two competing theories for the maintenance of genetic variation. Steeped in the enormous advances population genetics has made over the past 25 years, this book has proven highly popular among human geneticists, biologists, evolutionary theorists, and bio-mathematicians.
Author: Howard M. Shapiro Publisher: John Wiley & Sons ISBN: 0471434035 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 736
Book Description
From the reviews of the 3rd Edition... "The standard reference for anyone interested in understandingflow cytometry technology." American Journal of Clinical Oncology "...one of the most valuable of its genre and...addressed to awide audience?written in such an attractive way, being bothinformative and stimulating." Trends in Cell Biology This reference explains the science and discusses the vastbiomedical applications of quantitative analytical cytology usinglaser-activated detection and cell sorting. Now in its fourthedition, this text has been expanded to provide full coverage ofthe broad spectrum of applications in molecular biology andbiotechnology today. New to this edition are chapters on automatedanalysis of array technologies, compensation, high-speed sorting,reporter molecules, and multiplex and apoptosis assays, along withfully updated and revised references and a list of suppliers.
Author: Lorraine Daston Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 9780226136721 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 324
Book Description
Looks at how whole domains of phenomena come into being and sometimes pass away as objects of scientific study. With examples from the natural and social sciences, ranging from the 16th to the 20th centuries, this book explores the ways in which scientific objects are both real and historical.
Author: Hasok Chang
Author: Hasok Chang
Author: Hasok Chang
Author: Nigel Raab
Author: Steven Caney
Author: Don S. Lemons
Author: John H. Gillespie
Author: Howard M. Shapiro
Author: Lorraine Daston
Author: Jerry R. Mohrig