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Books > Science & Mathematics > Science: general issues > History of science
Christoph Rothmann wrote a treatise on the comet of 1585 shortly after it disappeared. Though it was not printed until 1619, Rothman sent a copy of his treatise in 1586 to Tycho Brahe, decisively influencing the latter's rejection of solid celestial spheres two years later. In his treatise, Rothmann joined the elimination of the solid celestial spheres to his concept of air as the substance filling the cosmos. He based his argument on the absence of refraction and the celestial location of the comet. The treatise also contained clear statements reflecting Rothmann's adoption of Copernicanism. This first critical edition of the treatise is accompanied by an English translation and a thorough commentary. Some appendices with archival documents illustrate the genesis of Rothmann's treatise.
Fresh translations of key texts, exhaustive coverage from Plato to Kant, and detailed commentary by expert scholars of philosophy add up to make this sourcebook the first and most comprehensive account of the history of the philosophy of mind. Published at a time when the philosophy of mind and philosophical psychology are high-profile domains in current research, the volume will inform our understanding of philosophical questions by shedding light on the origins of core conceptual assumptions often arrived at before the instauration of psychology as a recognized subject in its own right. The chapters closely follow historical developments in our understanding of the mind, with sections dedicated to ancient, medieval Latin and Arabic, and early modern periods of development. The volume's structural clarity enables readers to trace the entire progression of philosophical understanding on specific topics related to the mind, such as the nature of perception. Doing so reveals the fascinating contrasts between current and historical approaches. In addition to its all-inclusive source material, the volume provides subtle expert commentary that includes critical introductions to each thematic section as well as detailed engagement with the central texts. A voluminous bibliography includes hundreds of primary and secondary sources. The sheer scale of this new publication sheds light on the progression, and discontinuities, in our study of the philosophy of mind, and represents a major new sourcebook in a field of extreme importance to our understanding of humanity as a whole.
A DAILY MAIL BOOK OF THE WEEK 'Spare Parts is a fascinating read filled with adventure, delight and surprise' RAHUL JANDIAL, surgeon author of 'Life on a Knife's Edge' 'This is a joyful romp through a fascinating slice of medical history' WENDY MOORE, author of 'The Knife Man' _______________________________________________________________ How did an architect help pioneer blood transfusion in the 1660s? Why did eighteenth-century dentists buy the live teeth of poor children? And what role did a sausage skin and an enamel bath play in making kidney transplants a reality? We think of transplant surgery as one of the medical wonders of the modern world. But transplant surgery is as ancient as the pyramids, with a history more surprising than we might expect. Paul Craddock takes us on a journey - from sixteenth-century skin grafting to contemporary stem cell transplants - uncovering stories of operations performed by unexpected people in unexpected places. Bringing together philosophy, science and cultural history, Spare Parts explores how transplant surgery constantly tested the boundaries between human, animal and machine, and continues to do so today. Witty, entertaining and at times delightfully macabre, Spare Parts shows us that the history - and future - of transplant surgery is tied up with questions about not only who we are, but also what we are, and what we might become. . .
Based on extensive primary sources, many never previously translated into English, this is the definitive account of the discovery of Pallas as it went from being classified as a new planet to reclassification as the second of a previously unknown group of celestial objects. Cunningham, a dedicated scholar of asteroids, includes a large set of newly translated correspondence as well as the many scientific papers about Pallas in addition to sections of Schroeter's 1805 book on the subject. It was Olbers who discovered Pallas, in 1802, the second of many asteroids that would be officially identified as such. From the Gold Medal offered by the Paris Academy to solve the mystery of Pallas' gravitational perturbations to Gauss' Pallas Anagram, the asteroid remained a lingering mystery to leading thinkers of the time. Representing an intersection of science, mathematics, and philosophy, the puzzle of Pallas occupied the thoughts of an amazing panorama of intellectual giants in Europe in the early 1800s.
Coenraad Jacob Temminck and the Emergence of Systematics (1800-1850) is the first study to examine in detail the life and work of Coenraad Jacob Temminck (1778-1858), the Dutch naturalist who was the first director of 's Rijks Museum van Natuurlijke Historie (National Museum of Natural History) in Leiden, The Netherlands. This study situates Temminck's activities in the context of European natural history during the early to the mid-nineteenth century. Three issues which defined the era are discussed in more detail: the growing European colonial territories, the rise of scientific meritocracy, and the emergence of systematics as a discipline. Temminck's biography elucidates how and why systematics developed, and why its status within the natural sciences has been a matter of discussion for more than a century.
How do Documents Become Sources? Perspectives from Asia and Science Florence Bretelle-Establet From Documents to Sources in Historiography The present volume develops a specific type of critical analysis of the written documents that have become historians' sources. For reasons that will be explained later, the history of science in Asia has been taken as a framework. However, the issue addressed is general in scope. It emerged from reflections on a problem that may seem common to historians: why, among the huge mass of written documents available to historians, some have been well studied while others have been dismissed or ignored? The question of historical sources and their (unequal) use in historiography is not new. Which documents have been used and favored as historical sources by historians has been a key historiographical issue that has occupied a large space in the historical production of the last four decades, in France at least.
Eugenics is the branch of biology concerned with the improvement of hereditary qualities in humans. It draws scientists into direct contact with social and political policy makers. Yet, eugenic movements which have been mainly implemented by politicians, often differ significantly from the original aims of the scientists. The four contributors to this volume examine the eugenic movements in Germany, France, Brazil, and the Soviet Union. The scientific components of those programmes are considered alongside the social, religious, and political forces which significantly altered the original scientific goals. The book opens up new and comparative perspectives on the history of eugenics and the social aspects of science in general.
When planes crash, bridges collapse, and automobile gas tanks explode, we are quick to blame poor design. But Henry Petroski says we must look beyond design for causes and corrections. Known for his masterly explanations of engineering successes and failures, Petroski here takes his analysis a step further, to consider the larger context in which accidents occur. In To Forgive Design he surveys some of the most infamous failures of our time, from the 2007 Minneapolis bridge collapse and the toppling of a massive Shanghai apartment building in 2009 to Boston's prolonged Big Dig and the 2010 Gulf oil spill. These avoidable disasters reveal the interdependency of people and machines within systems whose complex behavior was undreamt of by their designers, until it was too late. Petroski shows that even the simplest technology is embedded in cultural and socioeconomic constraints, complications, and contradictions. Failure to imagine the possibility of failure is the most profound mistake engineers can make. Software developers realized this early on and looked outside their young field, to structural engineering, as they sought a historical perspective to help them identify their own potential mistakes. By explaining the interconnectedness of technology and culture and the dangers that can emerge from complexity, Petroski demonstrates that we would all do well to follow their lead.
The years 2012/2013 mark the 50th anniversary of the theoretical prediction that Brown Dwarfs, i.e. degenerate objects which are just not massive enough to sustain stable hydrogen fusion, exist. Some 20 years after their discovery, how Brown Dwarfs form is still one of the main open questions in the theory of star formation. In this volume, the pioneers of Brown Dwarf research review the history of the theoretical prediction and the subsequent discovery of Brown Dwarfs. After an introduction, written by Viki Joergens, reviewing Shiv Kumar's theoretical prediction of the existence of brown dwarfs, Takenori Nakano reviews his and Hayashi's calculation of the Hydrogen Burning Minimum Mass. Both predictions happened in the early 1960s. Jill Tarter then writes on the introduction of the term 'Brown Dwarf', before Ben Oppenheimer, Rafael Rebolo and Gibor Basri describe their first discovery of Brown Dwarfs in the 1990s. Lastly, Michael Cushing and Isabelle Baraffe describe the development of the field to the current state of the art. While the book is mainly aimed at the Brown Dwarf research community, the description of the pioneering period in a scientific field will attract general readers interested in astronomy as well.
In John Fryer and The Translator's Vade-mecum, Tola offers for the first time a comprehensive study of the collection of scientific and technical glossaries, with English-Chinese parallel translation, compiled by the English scholar John Fryer (1839-1928). Other than contributing to the history of modern Chinese lexicon and translation in late Qing China, Tola analyses the role of The Translator's Vade-mecum in the diffusion of ideas and terms between China and the West, at the same time providing new insights on the connection between religious efforts by missionaries in late Qing China and their secular attitude towards translation. The great number of resources presented also show a new perspective on the transcultural flows of knowledge, China's modernisation process in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the history of nineteenth-century Protestant missions in China.
In early April 1911 Albert Einstein arrived in Prague to become full professor of theoretical physics at the German part of Charles University. It was there, for the first time, that he concentrated primarily on the problem of gravitation. Before he left Prague in July 1912 he had submitted the paper Relativitat und Gravitation: Erwiderung auf eine Bemerkung von M. Abraham in which he remarkably anticipated what a future theory of gravity should look like. At the occasion of the Einstein-in-Prague centenary an international meeting was organized under a title inspired by Einstein's last paper from the Prague period: "Relativity and Gravitation, 100 Years after Einstein in Prague." The main topics of the conference included: classical relativity, numerical relativity, relativistic astrophysics and cosmology, quantum gravity, experimental aspects of gravitation and conceptual and historical issues. The conference attracted over 200 scientists from 31 countries, among them a number of leading experts in the field of general relativity and its applications. This volume includes abstracts of the plenary talks and full texts of contributed talks and articles based on the posters presented at the conference. These describe primarily original results of the authors. Full texts of the plenary talks are included in the volume "General Relativity, Cosmology and Astrophysics--Perspectives 100 Years after Einstein in Prague," eds. J. Bi ak and T. Ledvinka, published also by Springer Verlag."
Forty articles expertly curated by biographer Andrew Robinson provide an unrivalled account of the lives and personalities behind the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all time. Who made us see the atom, our minds, our planet and the universe afresh? How did we uncover the mysteries of life on earth? What next? The theories, discoveries and inventions of scientists have revolutionized our consciousness. Think of gravity, evolution, relativity, radioactivity and the Big Bang; electric motors, vaccines, nuclear power and computers. Behind these breakthroughs lie the personal stories of men and women with vision and determination: singular thinkers who defied adversity in their quest for answers. This book tells the remarkable lives of the pioneers - from Galileo, Faraday and Darwin, through Pasteur and Marie Curie, to Einstein, Freud and Turing. Written by an international team of distinguished scientists, historians and science writers, it will intrigue budding scientists; those fascinated by the lives of great individuals; and anyone curious to know how we came to understand the exterior world and the pulse of life within.
The lack of reliable demographic data for Byzantine cities raises questions as to the actual rate of expansion and mortality of plague. This essentially leads to the question of change and progress of the nature of infectious diseases in that period. Also, the analysis of the written sources raised a series of questions, mainly epidemiological in nature: the entry points and spreading of the disease in the Mediterranean, the epidemic dynamics as well as the evolution of the microbial agent of plague, i.e. Yersinia pestis. The present study offers a substantial explanation for the outbreaks of plague that struck Byzantium by exploring the multiple factors that caused or triggered epidemics. The study covers the entire period extending from the beginning of the Byzantine Empire until its fall in 1453, which was marked by two major pandemics, namely the Plague of Justinian and the Black Death. All known primary sources were collected and grouped from a spatiotemporal perspective, so as to retrace the unfolding of the two pandemics. The focus of the research shifts from known historical frameworks to ones of human activities, endemic foci and natural environment of the era as risk factors of the outbreaks.
This book explores the relationship between cultural psychology and aesthetics, by integrating the historical, theoretical and phenomenological perspectives. It offers a comprehensive discussion of the history of aesthetics and psychology from an international perspective, with contributions by leading researchers from Serbia, Austria, Portugal, Norway, Denmark, and Brazil. The first section of the book aims at summarizing the debate of where the song comes from. It discusses undeveloped topics, methodological hints, and epistemological questions in the different areas of contemporary psychological sciences. The second section of the book presents concrete examples of case-studies and methodological issues (the new melodies in psychological research) to stimulate further explorations. The book aims to bring art back into psychology, to provide an understanding for the art of psychology. An Old Melody in a New Song will be of interest to advanced students and researchers in the fields of educational and developmental psychology, cultural psychology, history of ideas, aesthetics, and art-based research.
Albert Einstein and Max Born were great friends. Their letters span
40 years and two world wars. In them they argue about quantum
theory, agree about Beethoven's heavenly violin and piano duets
(that they played together when they met) and chat about their
families. Equally important, the men commiserate over the tragic
plight of European Jewry and discuss what part they should play in
the tumultuous politics of the time.
The papers containedin this volume were presentedat the 5th IFIP InternationalC- ference on Theoretical Computer Science (IFIP TCS), 7-10 September 2008, Milan, Italy. TCS is a bi-annual conference.The ?rst conferenceof the series was held in Sendai (Japan, 2000), followed by Montreal (Canada, 2002), Toulouse (France, 2004) and Santiago (Chile, 2006).TCS is organizedby IFIP TC1 (Technical Committee 1: Fo- dations of Computer Science) and Working Group 2.2 of IFIP TC2 (Technical C- mittee 2: Software: Theory and Practice). TCS 2008 was part of the 20th IFIP World Computer Congress (WCC 2008), constituting the TC1 Track of WCC 2008. The contributed papers were selected from 36+45 submissions from altogether 30 countries. A total of 14+16 submissions were accepted as full papers. Papers in this volume are original contributions in two general areas: Track A: Algorithms, C- plexity and Models of Computation;and Track B: Logic, Semantics, Speci?cation and Veri?cation. The conference also included seven invited presentations, from Luca Cardelli, Thomas Ehrhard, Javier Esparza, Antonio Restivo, Tim Roughgarden, Gr- gorz Rozenberg and Avraham Trakhtman. These presentations are included (except one) in this volume. In particular, Luca Cardelli, Javier Esparza, Antonio Restivo, Tim Roughgarden and Avraham Trakhtman accepted our invitation to write full papers - lated to their talks.
The present volume advances a recent historiographical turn towards the intersection of early modern philosophy and the life sciences by bringing together many of its leading scholars to present the contributions of important but often neglected figures, such as Ralph Cudworth, Nehemiah Grew, Francis Glisson, Hieronymus Fabricius ab Aquapendente, Georg Ernst Stahl, Juan Gallego de la Serna, Nicholas Hartsoeker, Henry More, as well as more familiar figures such as Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Malebranche, and Kant. The contributions to this volume are organized in accordance with the particular problems that living beings and living nature posed for early modern philosophy: the problem of life in general, whether it constitutes something ontologically distinct at all, or whether it can ultimately be exhaustively comprehended "in the same manner as the rest "; the problem of the structure of living beings, by which we understand not just bare anatomy but also physiological processes such as irritability, motion, digestion, and so on; the problem of generation, which might be included alongside digestion and other vital processes, were it not for the fact that it presented such an exceptional riddle to philosophers since antiquity, namely, the riddle of coming-into-being out of - apparent or real - non-being; and, finally, the problem of natural order.
This is the first study of the use of figures of speech other than metaphor in scientific texts. Fahnestock breaks new ground in the rhetorical study of scientific argument by demonstrating how figures of speech other than metaphor have been used to accomplish key conceptual moves in scientific texts. Examples, both verbal and visual, range across disciplines and centuries to reaffirm the positive value of these once widely-taught devices. Her work will be of substantial interest to scholars of rhetoric, linguistics, cognitive science, and the study of science.
Churchill's 'Black Dog' is widely believed to have been an inborn tendency towards prolonged and despairing depression. In this, the first book-length study of all the available biographical evidence, some of which has never before been published, the truth emerges as significantly less grave than legend has it, but more psychologically complex.
This volume is put together in honor of a distinguished historian of science, Kostas Gavroglu, whose work has won international acclaim, and has been pivotal in establishing the discipline of history of science in Greece, its consolidation in other countries of the European Periphery, and the constructive dialogue of these emerging communities with an extended community of international scholars. The papers in the volume reflect Gavroglu's broad range of intellectual interests and touch upon significant themes in recent history and philosophy of science. They include topics in the history of modern physical sciences, science and technology in the European periphery, integrated history and philosophy of science, historiographical considerations, and intersections with the history of mathematics, technology and contemporary issues. They are authored by eminent scholars whose academic and personal trajectories crossed with Gavroglu's. The book will interest historians and philosophers of science and technology alike, as well as science studies scholars, and generally readers interested in the role of the sciences in the past in various geographical contexts.
A critical examination of the rise of wearable EEG monitors. From Fitbits to GPS trackers, wearables promise to help us understand and improve ourselves in quantified ways. We count our steps, track our location, and even monitor our brain waves as we strive to achieve better fitness, clearer direction, or a more focused mind. But why do we rely on wearables to learn about ourselves? In Instrumental Intimacy, Melissa M. Littlefield questions our desire for mechanistic guidance by examining brain-based EEG wearables that promise to improve sleep, relationships, self-knowledge, and learning. Littlefield focuses specifically on EEGs' transition out of the laboratory and into the hands of consumers. While other brain-imaging technologies (such as MRI, PET, and MEG) are used only in specialized laboratories, human electroencephalography (a.k.a. EEG) is embedded in portable, user-friendly devices. These direct-to-consumer wearables visualize brain activity as accessible data, and many offer the promise of self-optimization. Littlefield's illuminating book brings the histories of EEG to bear on the contemporary development of EEG wearables via case studies of EEG-based sleep aids, bio-mapping instruments, fashionable surveillance tools, and athletic training devices. The author argues that, over the past century, applied uses of EEG helped to create new states of mind to be monitored and manipulated, as well as discourses about the existence of brain waves and their viability as a tool for brain optimization. By contextualizing and analyzing EEG wearables, Instrumental Intimacy provides a crucial intervention in an emergent consumer market and in the scholarly fields of STS, critical neuroscience, and the history of technology. |
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