A survey of the interaction between science and Anglo-American literature from the late medieval period to the 20th century, examining how authors, thinkers, and philosophers have viewed science in literary texts, and used science as a window to the future. Spanning six centuries, this survey of the interplay between science and literature in the West begins with Chaucer's Treatise on the Astrolabe and includes commentary on key trends in contemporary literature. Beginning with the birth of science fiction, the authors examine the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne as well as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein within the context of a wider analysis of the impact of major historical developments like the Renaissance, the scientific revolution, the Enlightenment, and Romanticism. The book balances readings of literature with explanations of the impact of key scientific ideas. Focusing primarily on British and American literature, the book also takes an informed but accessible approach to the history of science, with seminal scientific works discussed in a critical rather than overly theoretical manner. Gives clear explanations of scientific ideas ranging from medieval cosmology to modern concepts in astronomy Organizes the material in chronological order with a chronology and bibliographic essay accompanying each chapter

This book brings together the central tenets of William Stern's critical personalism. Presented for the first time for an English-speaking audience, this selection of original translations and essays encapsulates the critical framework of Stern's personalistic psychology. The selected works highlight the philosophical basis of Stern's personalistic views, illustrate their relevance in domains of theoretical and practical importance in psychology, and reveal Stern's critical stance on certain methodological trends that were gaining favor within psychology during his lifetime. Lamiell's own chapters contextualise the translations by providing an overview of the most basic tenets of critical personalism, and offering a commentary on paradigmatic commitments within scientific psychology's mainstream that began to impede Stern's efforts prior to his death, and that remain obstacles to personalistic thinking in the discipline today. Largely ignored by his contemporaries, this work forms part of an emerging body of scholarship that seeks to reintroduce Stern's thinking into contemporary psychology. The book is intended for academically oriented scholars with interests in historical, theoretical and philosophical issues in psychology.

This book is a sequel to Heaven and Earth in Ancient Greek Cosmology (Springer 2011). With the help of many pictures, the reader is introduced into the way of thinking of ancient believers in a flat earth. The first part offers new interpretations of several Presocratic cosmologists and a critical discussion of Aristotle's proofs that the earth is spherical. The second part explains and discusses the ancient Chinese system called gai tian. The last chapter shows that, inadvertently, ancient arguments and ideas return in the curious modern flat earth cosmologies.

This book addresses a wide range of topics relating to the properties and behavior of condensed matter under extreme conditions such as intense magnetic and electric fields, high pressures, heat and cold, and mechanical stresses. It is divided into four sections devoted to condensed matter theory, molecular chemistry, theoretical physics, and the philosophy and history of science. The main themes include electronic correlations in material systems under extreme pressure and temperature conditions, surface physics, the transport properties of low-dimensional electronic systems, applications of the density functional theory in molecular systems, and graphene. The book is the outcome of a workshop held at the University of Catania, Italy, in honor of Professor Renato Pucci on the occasion of his 70th birthday. It includes selected invited contributions from collaborators and co-authors of Professor Pucci during his long and successful career, as well as from other distinguished guest authors.

This volume features essays that explore the insights of the 14th-century Parisian nominalist philosopher, John Buridan. It serves as a companion to the Latin text edition and annotated English translation of his question-commentary on Aristotle's On the Soul. The contributors survey Buridan's work both in its own historical-theoretical context and in relation to contemporary issues. The essays come in three main sections, which correspond to the three books of Buridan's Questions. Coverage first deals with the classification of the science of the soul within the system of Aristotelian sciences, and surveys the main issues within it. The next section examines the metaphysics of the soul. It considers Buridan's peculiar version of Aristotelian hylomorphism in dealing with the problem of what kind of entity the soul (in particular, the human soul) is, and what powers and actions it has, on the basis of which we can approach the question of its essence. The volume concludes with a look at Buridan's doctrine of the nature and functions of the human intellect. Coverage in this section includes the problem of self-knowledge in Buridan's theory, Buridan's answer to the traditional medieval problem concerning the primary object of the intellect, and his unique treatment of logical problems in psychological contexts.

This book probes beneath modern scientific and sentimental concepts of the heart to discover its past mysteries. Historical hearts evidenced essential aspects of human existence that still endure in modern thought and experience of political community, psychological mentality, and physical vitality. Marjorie O'Rourke Boyle revises ordinary assumptions about the heart with original interdisciplinary research on religious beliefs and theological and philosophical ideas. Her book uncovers the thought of Aristotle, William Harvey, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and John Calvinas it relates to the heart. It analyzes Augustine's outlaw heart in cultural deviance from biblical law; Aquinas's problematic argument for the permanence of the natural law in the heart; and Calvin's advocacy for an affective heart re-created by the Spirit from its fallen nature. This book of cultural anatomies is the climax of her dozen years of publications on the heart.

This book examines how modern medicine's mechanistic conception of the body has become a defense mechanism to cope with death anxiety. Robbins draws from research on the phenomenology of the body, the history of cadaver dissection, and empirical research in terror management theory to highlight how medical culture operates as an agent which promotes anesthetic consciousness as a habit of perception. In short, modern medicine's comportment toward the cadaver promotes the suppression of the memory of the person who donated their body. This suppression of the memorial body comes at the price of concealing the lived, experiential body of patients in medical practice. Robbins argues that this style of coping has influenced Western culture and has helped to foster maladaptive patterns of perception associated with experiential avoidance, diminished empathy, death denial, and the dysregulation of emotion.

Produced by an award-winning translator of Henri Poincare, this book contains translations of several seminal articles by Poincare and discusses the experimental and theoretical investigations of electrons that form their context. In the 1950s, a dispute ignited about the origin of the theory of special relativity and thrust considerable notoriety on a paper written by Henri Poincare in 1905. Accordingly, Part I presents the relevant translations of Poincare's work showing that radiation carries momentum and the covariance of the equations of electrodynamics, the continuity equation for charge, and the spacetime interval. Part II then discusses investigations by Thomson, Becquerel, and Kaufmann of electrons in diverse contexts; contributions of Abraham, Lorentz and Poincare to a theory of electrons that includes Lorentz transformations and explains the dependence of mass on velocity; and finally, Poincare's exploration of the relativity principle, electron stability, and gravitation while rejecting absolute motion (ether) and an electromagnetic origin of mass. Part III contains the 1904 article by H. A. Lorentz presenting his transformations.This book will be a fascinating read to graduate-level students, physicists, and science historians who are interested in the development of electrodynamics and the classical, relativistic theory of electrons at the beginning of the 20th century.

The history of the modern sciences has long overlooked the significance of domesticity as a physical, social, and symbolic force in the shaping of knowledge production. This book provides a welcome reorientation to our understanding of the making of the modern sciences globally by emphasizing the centrality of domesticity in diverse scientific enterprises.

The bald eagle is regal but fearless, a bird you're not inclined to argue with. For centuries, Americans have celebrated it as "majestic" and "noble" yet savaged the living bird behind their national symbol as a malicious predator of livestock and, falsely, a snatcher of babies. Taking us from before the United States' founding through inconceivable resurgences of this enduring all-American species, Jack E. Davis contrasts the age when native peoples lived beside it peacefully with that when others, whether through hunting bounties or DDT pesticides, twice pushed Haliaeetus leucocephalus to the brink of extinction. Filled with spectacular stories of Founding Fathers, rapacious hunters, heroic bird rescuers and the lives of bald eagles themselves-monogamous creatures, considered among the animal world's finest parents-The Bald Eagle is a much-awaited cultural and natural history that demonstrates how this bird's wondrous journey may provide inspiration today, as we grapple with environmental peril on a larger scale.

The large telescope at Meudon has become legendary. When it was conceived, after 1870, astronomy as a whole was limited to visual observation. Knowledge of the sky was limited to what one could see, assisted only by optical means. The large telescopes produced at this time produced larger images, permitting close-up views: the Meudon telescope was able to accomplish this perfectly. At Meudon, which became the Mecca of visual observation, the major planets were examined in a way that no other telescope had previously been able to. The telescope monitored the state of their atmospheres and mapped the appearance of their surfaces. Through the telescope, one could obtain photographs showing the nuclei of comets, revealing their very small size, and by using an eyepiece one could measure the separation of double stars. With a marvellous little instrument, the polarimeter, the nature of clouds in planetary atmospheres has been determined, and the type of surface material identified. Many more results were obtained, while photography, universally adopted, revolutionized other knowledge about the world. The sensitive emulsion, combined with large aperture reflecting telescopes, revealed the deepness and richness of the cosmos. The vast telescope of Meudon, which was the largest refracting telescope in Europe, became a legendary instrument and was symbolic of a new way to practice astronomy. Audouin Dollfus, a renowned astronomer, describes the great years of the Meudon telescope. He gives us the entire story of this instrument, from the birth of the concept that drove Jules Janssen at the end of the nineteenth century, to the idea that French astronomy could provide an outstanding telescope which would approach the limits of technical and industrial resources. The telescope remained unchanged until 2006, when the first steps toward restoration and public reopening were taken.

This collection discusses and illustrates how educational research is affected by the economic, institutional and physical contingencies of its time, and in our time even increasingly is driven by them. It is argued that the antidote to this is, however, not to aspire to 'thought itself', but instead to do justice to its own rootedness in the 'material', including textuality. From an historical point of view such an innovative approach can itself revamp the material scholarly culture and the way it is represented. The chapters address a variety of topics such as the cultural heritage of the school desk, the significance of images for research into long-term educational processes, the way iconic signs function, and how modes of enquiry relate to the materiality of education. Attention is also given to standards for reporting on educational research studies and how these limit the scope and communication and moreover shape researchers, to the forms of citation practices as substantially influencing methods and content, and to the centrality of conversation not just as the means to an end but as what matters; further to representational and to non-representational theories for educational research. Some examples are drawn from the area of arts-based educational research, from mathematics education, and from the discourse on universities.

This research monograph provides a synthesis of a number of statistical tests and measures, which, at first consideration, appear disjoint and unrelated. Numerous comparisons of permutation and classical statistical methods are presented, and the two methods are compared via probability values and, where appropriate, measures of effect size. Permutation statistical methods, compared to classical statistical methods, do not rely on theoretical distributions, avoid the usual assumptions of normality and homogeneity of variance, and depend only on the data at hand. This text takes a unique approach to explaining statistics by integrating a large variety of statistical methods, and establishing the rigor of a topic that to many may seem to be a nascent field in statistics. This topic is new in that it took modern computing power to make permutation methods available to people working in the mainstream of research. lly-informed="" audience,="" and="" can="" also="" easily="" serve="" as="" textbook="" in="" graduate="" course="" departments="" such="" statistics,="" psychology,="" or="" biology.="" particular,="" the="" audience="" for="" book="" is="" teachers="" of="" practicing="" statisticians,="" applied="" quantitative="" students="" fields="" medical="" research,="" epidemiology,="" public="" health,="" biology.

The essays in Copernirus and his Successors deal both with the influences on Copernicus, including that of Greek and Arabic thinkers, and with his own life and attitudes. They also examine how he was seen by contemporaries and finally describe his relationship to other scientists, including Galileo, Brahe and Kepler.

An eye-opening history of the technology that harnessed electricity and powered the greatest scientific and technological advances of our time.

What begin as a long-running dispute in biology, involving a dead frog's twitching leg, a scalpel, and a metal plate, would become an invention that transformed the history of the world: the battery. Science journalist Henry Schlesinger traces the history of this essential power source and demonstrates its impact on our lives, from Alessandro Volta's first copper-and-zinc model in 1800 to twenty-first-century technological breakthroughs. Schlesinger introduces the charlatans and geniuses, the paupers and magnates, who were attracted to the power of the battery.

The focus of this volume is the intersection and the cross-fertilization between the travel narrative, literary discourse, and the New Philosophy in the early modern to early eighteenth-century historical periods. Contributors examine how, in an historical era which realized an emphasis on nation and during a time when exploration was laying the foundation for empire, science and the literary discourse of the travel narrative become intrinsically linked. Together, the essays in this collection point out the way in which travel narratives reflect the anxiety from changes brought about through the discoveries of the 'new knowledge' and the way this knowledge in turn provided a new and more complex understanding of the expanding world in which the writers lived. The worlds in this text are many (for no 'world' is monomial), from the antipodes to the New World, from the heavens to the seas, and from fictional worlds to the world which contains and/or constructs one's nation and empire. All of these essays demonstrate the manner in which the New Philosophy dramatically changed literary discourse.

The Evolution of Scientific Knowledge aims to reach a unique understanding of science with the help of economic and sociological theories. The economic theories used are institutionalist and evolutionary. The sociological theories draw from the type of work on social studies of science that have, in recent decades, transformed our picture of science and technology. Science - and more broadly research - is a field where economics and sociology meet in an attempt to understand how complex organizations emerge and work. While the authors argue that science is neither an institution nor an order that emerged as the result of conscious and willful design, nor is it like a 'normal' market, they also acknowledge that science has aspects of market orders and aspects of orders created by design. Furthermore, science develops in specific ways that are to some extent like the development of economic systems, and at the same time are very different. This fascinating book will be of great interest to economists, philosophers, historians and sociologists by focussing on a multidisciplinary understanding of science.

The zodiac was first clearly defined by the Babylonians some 2500 years ago, but until recently the basis of this original definition remained unknown. This zodiac of the Babylonians, known as the sidereal zodiac because it is specified in direct relation to the stars (Latin sideris, 'starry'), was used for centuries throughout the ancient world, all the way to India, and must be distinguished from the tropical zodiac in widespread use by astrologers in the West today, which was introduced only in the middle of the second century A.D. by the Greek astronomer Claudius Ptolemy. Such was Ptolemy's influence, however, that the tropical zodiac gained prominence and, except for its survival (in a variant form) in India, knowledge of the sidereal zodiac was lost. In this thrilling study of the history of the zodiac, first submitted in 2004 as his Ph.D. thesis, Robert Powell rescues the the sidereal zodiac from the dusts of time, tracing it back to the Babylonians in the sixth/fifth centuries B.C. The implications of this discovery-among them the restitution of the sideral zodiac to its rightful place at the heart of astrology-are immense, they key point being that the signs of the sidereal zodiac, each thirty degrees long, coincide closely with the twelve astronomical constellations of the same name, whereas the signs of the tropical zodiac, since they are defined in relation to the vernal point, now have no direct relationship to the corresponding zodiacal constellations, owing to the precession of the equinoxes.This revolutionary history of the zodiac includes chapters on the Egyptian decans and the Hindu nakshatras, showing how these sidereal divisions, which originated in Egypt and India, are related to the original Babylonian zodiac. It also sheds light on the controversy surrounding the 'zodiac question' (tropical vs. sidereal), illuminating the history of the tropical zodiac-showing that originally it was not a zodiac at all, but a calendar for describing the course of the seasons This book, the fruit of thirty years of research, is intended not only for scholars but for general readers as well, and offers the clearest and most comprehensive study of the history of the zodiac yet published.

Just how far did Charles Darwin's luck - both good and bad - affect his life and scientific discoveries? One might make a case for saying that Darwin's life was dogged by ill-luck (or perhaps ill-fortune is more appropriate). His mother died when he was seven; he was sent to a school at which he 'learnt little'; he left Edinburgh Medical School after two years, unqualified. He undertook a five-year voyage although he was prone to sea-sickness; his girlfriend (of whom there is evidence he was very fond) married someone else a few months into this voyage. He was affected by ill-health throughout much of his life. One of his children appears to have been mentally handicapped and this child, and also his beloved Annie, died in infancy. In addition to all this, his brother became addicted to drugs.On the other hand one could argue that he had a privileged and fortunate life - perhaps the more common view. At a number of key points in his life he made a choice, or others made a choice, or circumstances occurred, that profoundly influenced the path that he took. There is a school of thought, one that this book investigates, that although Darwin came to the right conclusions, he did not actually follow the right path in getting there. While his science was sometimes flawed, he had the distinct knack of good instinct. Whilst on his voyage to the Galapagos vital evidence that would have led to his theories becoming clearer quite literally slipped through his fingers - Galapagos turtles were caught, examined and their shells thrown overboard. Had he been more thorough, Darwin may have noticed that the clues to his theory of evolution were on these very shells.

Despite the popular view of medieval Europe as a "Dark Age" of intellectual stagnation, scientific and technological achievement thrived during this time. As any vacationer to Europe knows, churches and castles remain lasting testaments to the ingenuity of that period in history. Through carefully chosen examples which are presented in easily accessible thematic chapters, Science and Technology in Medieval European Life demonstrates how these two aspects of human achievement, far from bring ivory-tower enterprises, impacted the daily life of people in medieval Europe. These topics will also resonate with modern readers in their own daily lives. This reference work begins with an historical introduction that situates medieval science and technology into its social, intellectual and religious context. Among the varied topics found in the chapters are: armor making, waterwheels and waterpower, chimneys, stained glass, communication technology, ship building, medicine both academic and village, mechanical clocks, calendar creation, and astrology. For those interested in pursuing further research into this area of history, the book concludes with a chronology of events, a suggested list of further reading and a glossary.

For the past 20 years causality violations and superluminal motion have been the object of intensive study as physical and geometrical phenomena. This book compiles the results of its author and also reviews other work in the field. In particular, the following popular questions are addressed: Is causality protected by quantum divergence at the relevant Cauchy horizon? How much "exotic matter" would it take to create a time machine or a warp drive? What is the difference between a "discovered" time machine and a created one? Why does a time traveler fail to kill their grandfather? How should we define the speed of gravity and what is its magnitude?