In 1908, three years after Einstein first published his special theory of relativity, the mathematician Hermann Minkowski introduced his four-dimensional "spacetime" interpretation of the theory. Einstein initially dismissed Minkowski's theory, remarking that "since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity I do not understand it myself anymore." Yet Minkowski's theory soon found wide acceptance among physicists, including eventually Einstein himself, whose conversion to Minkowski's way of thinking was engendered by the realization that he could profitably employ it for the formulation of his new theory of gravity. The validity of Minkowski's mathematical "merging" of space and time has rarely been questioned by either physicists or philosophers since Einstein incorporated it into his theory of gravity. Physicists often employ Minkowski spacetime with little regard to the whether it provides a true account of the physical world as opposed to a useful mathematical tool in the theory of relativity. Philosophers sometimes treat the philosophy of space and time as if it were a mere appendix to Minkowski's theory. In this critical study, Joseph Cosgrove subjects the concept of spacetime to a comprehensive examination and concludes that Einstein's initial assessment of Minkowksi was essentially correct.

This volume honors the lifetime achievement of distinguished activist and scholar Elise Boulding (1920-2010) on the occasion of her 96th birthday. Known as the "matriarch" of the twentieth century peace research movement, she made significant contributions in the fields of peace education, future studies, feminism, and sociology of the family, as well as serving as a prominent leader in the peace movement and the Society of Friends. She taught at the University of Colorado, Boulder from 1967 to 1978 and at Dartmouth College from 1978 to 1985, and was instrumental in the development of peace studies programs at both those institutions. She was a co-founder of the International Peace Research Association (1964), the Consortium on Peace Research Education and Development (1970), and various peace and women's issue related committees and working groups of the American Sociological Association and International Sociological Association.

Arun Bala challenges Eurocentric conceptions of history by showing how Chinese, Indian, Arabic, and ancient Egyptian ideas in philosophy, mathematics, cosmology and physics played an indispensable role in making possible the birth of modern science.

This book analyses the emergence of a transformed Big Science in Europe and the United States, using both historical and sociological perspectives. It shows how technology-intensive natural sciences grew to a prominent position in Western societies during the post-World War II era, and how their development cohered with both technological and social developments. At the helm of post-war science are large-scale projects, primarily in physics, which receive substantial funds from the public purse. Big Science Transformed shows how these projects, popularly called 'Big Science', have become symbols of progress. It analyses changes to the political and sociological frameworks surrounding publicly-funding science, and their impact on a number of new accelerator and reactor-based facilities that have come to prominence in materials science and the life sciences. Interdisciplinary in scope, this book will be of great interest to historians, sociologists and philosophers of science.

The subject of the book is the development of physics in the 18th century centered upon the fundamental contributions of Leonhard Euler to physics and mathematics. This is the first book devoted to Euler as a physicist. Classical mechanics are reconstructed in terms of the program initiated by Euler in 1736 and its completion over the following decades until 1760. The book examines how Euler coordinated his progress in mathematics with his progress in physics.

In 1910, E. T. Whittaker wrote "A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity," which gave a very detailed account of the aether theories from Ren Descartes to Hendrik Lorentz, and which made Whittaker a respected historian of science. Though the book was a "History," Whittaker showed his own brilliance in his exposition of relativity. (Fully illustrated)

Using primary sources and personal experience, this book traces the origins of microbiology at the government establishments at the Porton Down Centre. Begun in secrecy during World War II, early work concentrated on a response to the threat of biological warfare from Germany. It traces Porton's pioneering work on deadly diseases such as anthrax, through to the Centre's modern role in healthcare. The authors provide an invaluable source of information for scientists and historians alike, particularly for those interested in political and military history.

This book focuses on an important but neglected aspect of the Spanish Civil War, the evolution of medical and surgical care of the wounded during the conflict. Importantly, the focus is from a mainly Spanish perspective - as the Spanish are given a voice in their own story, which has not always been the case. Central to the book is General Franco's treatment of Muslim combatants, the anarchist contribution to health, and the medicalisation of propaganda - themes that come together in a medico-cultural study of the Spanish Civil War. Suffusing the narrative and the analysis is the traumatic legacy of conflict, an untreated wound that a new generation of Spaniards are struggling to heal.

During the last years, important geopolitical changes took place in the broader area of Eastern Europe, having as a consequence, among others, the change of policy and strategy in many fields such as social, economical, commercial, scientific e.t.c. It was a contemporary demand to have a meeting of scientists from various countries and especially from countries of the Eastern Europe and the Balkan area, where the various problems concerning the scientific, technological and research fields could be studied and discussed. The goals of this meeting would be: mutual information, broadening of cooperation possibilities through common research programs, as well as possible development of a common policy in certain sections of science and technology of mutual interest. The realization of this meeting, which came true with the initiative, the moral of the NATO Scientific Affairs Division gave the and full economical support pursued results included in the present volume. It was my pleasure to act as the Director of the NATO ARW and I am most grateful to the NATO Scientific Affairs Division for the financial support and especially to its Programme Director, Dr. Alain Jubier, whose contribution to every step of the workshop was essential so that this meeting would be effective.

This volume, occasioned by the centenary of the Fritz Haber Institute, formerly the Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry, covers the institute's scientific and institutional history from its founding until the present. The institute was among the earliest established by the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, and its inauguration was one of the first steps in the development of Berlin-Dahlem into a center for scientific research. Its establishment was made possible by an endowment from Leopold Koppel, granted on the condition that Fritz Haber, well-known for his discovery of a method to synthesize ammonia from its elements, be made its director. The history of the institute has largely paralleled that of 20th-century Germany. It undertook controversial weapons research during World War I, followed by a "Golden Era" during the 1920s, in spite of financial hardships. Under the National Socialists it experienced a purge of its scientific staff and a diversion of its research into the service of the new regime, accompanied by a breakdown in its international relations. In the immediate aftermath of World War II it suffered crippling material losses, from which it recovered slowly in the post-war era. In 1953, shortly after taking the name of its founding director, the institute joined the fledgling Max Planck Society. During the 1950s and 60s, the institute supported diverse researches into the structure of matter and electron microscopy in a territorially insular and politically precarious West-Berlin. In subsequent decades, as both Berlin and the Max Planck Society underwent significant changes, the institute reorganized around a board of coequal scientific directors and a renewed focus on the investigation of elementary processes on surfaces and interfaces, topics of research that had been central to the work of Fritz Haber and the first "Golden Era" of the institute.

This book discusses spirituality as an emerging scientific topic from a historical perspective, with extensive discussion of the mind-body problem and of scientific concepts of consciousness. While the book focuses on the Western tradition of 'Enlightenment', it also implicitly addresses the double meaning of the term, with the Eastern tradition describing it as 'a state of true knowledge, which is an important goal on an individual's spiritual path' and the Western tradition seeing it as 'the collective process of getting rid of narrow-minded dogmas and concepts'. The book is based on a simple yet challenging premise: Science has not gone far enough in the scientific process of going from a collective mind tied up in dogmatic teachings to a truly free mind that, seemingly, freed itself from bondage and restrictions. The book shows that science, and with it our whole Western culture, has to incorporate spirituality if it is to realize this goal of enlightenment. If that is done, and it can only be done by many individuals actually practicing spirituality, this will also lead to the individual type of enlightenment.

Jan De Vos starts where other critiques on psychology end, presenting the argument that psychology is psychologization.This fresh and pioneering approach asks what it means to become the psychologist of one's own life. If something is not working in our education, in our marriage, in our work and in society in general we turn to the psy-sciences. But is the latter's paradigm precisely not relying on feeding psychological theories into the field of research and action?This book traces psychologization from the Enlightenment to Late-Modernity, engaging with seminal thinkers such as La Mettrie, Husserl, Lasch and Agamben, whereby Jan De Vos teases out the possibilities and the limits of using psychoanalytic theory as a critical tool. Offering challenging and thought-provoking insights into how the modern human came to adopt a psychological gaze on itself and the world, this book will appeal to psychologists, sociologists and studies of culture.

This volume covers Darwin's reception across Europe and his influence on European science and culture.Charles Darwin is a crucial figure in nineteenth-century science with an extensive and varied reception in different countries and disciplines. His theory had a revolutionary impact not only on biology, but also on other natural sciences and the new social sciences. The term 'Darwinism', already popular in Darwin's lifetime, ranged across many different areas and ideological aspects, and his own ideas about the implications of evolution for human cognitive, emotional, social and ethical capacities were often interpreted in a way that did not mirror his own intentions. The implications for religious, philosophical and political issues and institutions remain as momentous today as in his own time.This volume conveys the many-sidedness of Darwin's reception and exhibit his far-reaching impact on our self-understanding as human beings.

New Edition available hereGalois' Theory of Algebraic Equations gives a detailed account of the development of the theory of algebraic equations, from its origins in ancient times to its completion by Galois in the nineteenth century. The main emphasis is placed on equations of at least the third degree, i.e. on the developments during the period from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. The appropriate parts of works by Cardano, Lagrange, Vandermonde, Gauss, Abel and Galois are reviewed and placed in their historical perspective, with the aim of conveying to the reader a sense of the way in which the theory of algebraic equations has evolved and has led to such basic mathematical notions as “group” and “field”. A brief discussion on the fundamental theorems of modern Galois theory is included. Complete proofs of the quoted results are provided, but the material has been organized in such a way that the most technical details can be skipped by readers who are interested primarily in a broad survey of the theory.This book will appeal to both undergraduate and graduate students in mathematics and the history of science, and also to teachers and mathematicians who wish to obtain a historical perspective of the field. The text has been designed to be self-contained, but some familiarity with basic mathematical structures and with some elementary notions of linear algebra is desirable for a good understanding of the technical discussions in the later chapters.

Emerging disciplines in the border zone between physics and chemistry have 1 attracted the attention of historians of science particularly in the last 20 years. 2 Quantum chemistry, as an offshoot of theoretical chemistry, has recently acquired 3 some importance in the history of chemistry. It is the product of close 1 Cf. Hiebert, E. : Discipline Identi cation in Chemistry and Physics, in: Science in Context, 9(2) (1996), 93-119; Nye, M. J. : Physics and Chemistry: Commensurate or Incommensurate Sciences? in: The Invention of Physical Science, Intersections of Mathematics, Theology and Natural Philosophy since the Seventeenth Century - Essays in Honor of Erwin N. Hiebert. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht 1992; From Chemical Philosophy to Theoretical Chemistry: Dynamics of Matter and Dynamics of Disciplines, 1800-1950. University of California Press, Berkeley 1994; Servos, J. W. : Physical Chemistry from Ostwald to Pauling, the Making of a Science in America. Princeton University Press, New Jersey 1990; Chemical Sciences in the 20th Century: Bridging Boundaries, edited by Carsten Reinhard. Wiley-VCH, Weinheim 2001 (incl. a comprehensive bibliography). 2 In an earlier article I point out that the term "quantum chemistry" [Quantenchemie] rst appeared in 1929. To my knowledge it was coined by the physicist Arthur Haas. Talks he had del- ered before the Viennese Chemico-Physical Society in the spring of 1929 are assembled in his book: Die Grundlagen der Quantenchemie: Eine Einleitung in vier Vortrage. It was published by the Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft in Leipzig.

I Twenty-five years ago, at the Conference on the Comparative Reception of Darwinism held at the University of Texas in 1972, only two countries of the Iberian world-Spain and Mexico-were represented.' At the time, it was apparent that the topic had attracted interest only as regarded the "mainstream" science countries of Western Europe, plus the United States. The Eurocentric bias of professional history of science was a fact. The sea change that subsequently occurred in the historiography of science makes 1972 appear something like the antediluvian era. Still, we would like to think that that meeting was prescient in looking beyond the mainstream science countries-as then perceived-in order to test the variation that ideas undergo as they pass from center to periphery. One thing that the comparative study of the reception of ideas makes abundantly clear, however, is the weakness of the center/periphery dichotomy from the perspective of the diffusion of scientific ideas. Catholics in mainstream countries, for example, did not handle evolution much better than did their corre1igionaries on the fringes. Conversely, Darwinians in Latin America were frequently better placed to advance Darwin's ideas in a social and political sense than were their fellow evolutionists on the Continent. The Texas meeting was also a marker in the comparative reception of scientific ideas, Darwinism aside. Although, by 1972, scientific institutions had been studied comparatively, there was no antecedent for the comparative history of scientific ideas.

We know the universe has a history, but does it also have a story of self-creation to tell? Yes, in Roy R. Gould’s account. He offers a compelling narrative of how the universe—with no instruction other than its own laws—evolved into billions of galaxies and gave rise to life, including humans who have been trying for millennia to comprehend it. Far from being a random accident, the universe is hard at work, extracting order from chaos. Making use of the best current science, Gould turns what many assume to be true about the universe on its head. The cosmos expands inward, not outward. Gravity can drive things apart, not merely together. And the universe seems to defy entropy as it becomes more ordered, rather than the other way around. Strangest of all, the universe is exquisitely hospitable to life, despite its being constructed from undistinguished atoms and a few unexceptional rules of behavior. Universe in Creation explores whether the emergence of life, rather than being a mere cosmic afterthought, may be written into the most basic laws of nature. Offering a fresh take on what brought the world—and us—into being, Gould helps us see the universe as the master of its own creation, not tethered to a singular event but burgeoning as new space and energy continuously stream into existence. It is a very old story, as yet unfinished, with plotlines that twist and churn through infinite space and time.