Reader's guide to the history of science (Q2716087)

From the editor's note: The aim of the Reader's guide to the history of science is to offer some help to those who wish to explore the riches of the writings on history of science in all its diversity. In the belief that a simple listing of books will not suffice for this purpose, the Reader's guide takes the form of a series of essays that describe and assess books on some 500 different topics -- some specialized and very specific, others much broader and more general. This approach is designed to help readers of various kinds and at various levels: students (both undergraduate and graduate) looking for assistance with their next assignment or research paper; teachers in schools, colleges and universities -- and particularly those who are faced with the challenge of preparing courses or classes on topics in which they are not specialists; and those non-specialist readers who simply have an interest in a particular subject, and seek advice on what to read next.NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEEntries fall into three main categories, dealing respectively with individuals, disciplines and institutions, and broader themes. In cases where the literature on particular individuals is not substantial it has been subsumed under a broader theme. The second category reflects another important genre. There are many histories of disciplines such as genetics, biology, physics, and chemistry, and of institutions such as the Royal Society of London. The third, more general, category covers literature on topics such as the Enlightenment or the scientific revolution. This category also contains entries on analytical concepts, such as alienation, discovery, and experiments. The aim overall is that this kind of `multi-layered' approach will enable the user to navigate from the particular to the general, or vice versa, as his or her needs and inclinations dictate.NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEGiven that the approach had to be selective, the reader is entitled to know something of the principles underlying that selection. These are as follows: (1) The emphasis is predominantly on books (and contributions to books), as opposed to articles in journals and magazines. Articles are normally included only when they are of seminal importance, or when there is no adequate treatment of a particular aspect of a subject in a book-length study. (2) The Reader's guide is a guide to the secondary literature, and not to primary sources, or to collections of printed source material. There are two limited exceptions to this rule. An editorial introduction or editorial footnotes to a collection of source materials may justify the inclusion of the source materials. Second, translations of primary source material are included too. (3) For each entry, the contributor was free, within the editorial guidelines, to make his or her own choice of books to be discussed. In most cases, the emphasis is on more recently published work, but, where appropriate, contributors were encouraged to include earlier books in order to sketch the historiographical development. New works appear constantly, and there has been no single cut-off point for inclusion of books in the Reader's guide.NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEEntries appear in alphabetical order; a complete list of them can be found in the Alphabetical List of Entries (p. xv). Each entry begins with a list of the books/articles to be discussed. Publication details are provided, including dates of first publication and, where appropriate, the most recent revised edition. Reprints and paperback editions are normally omitted.NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEThe following entries appear to be of possible interest to individuals working in mathematics, its applications, or the history of mathematics: Acoustics; Algebra; Arabic science; Archimedes; Aristotle; Arithmetic; Artificial intelligence; Astrolabes; Astronomy: general works; Astronomy: non-European; Astrophysics; Axiomatics; Big bang theory; Biometrics, statistical biology, and mathematical statistics; Niels Bohr; Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann; Tycho Brahe; Calculating devices; Georg Cantor; Chaos theory; China: astronomy and mathematics; Clocks; Computing; Copernicanism; Nicolaus Copernicus; Cosmology; Rene Descartes; Pierre Maurice Marie Duhem; Egypt and Mesopotamia; Albert Einstein; Electromagnetism; Ethnomathematics; Euclid; Pierre Fermat; Richard Feynman; Michel Foucault; Function; Galilean School; Galileo Galilei; Carl Friedrich Gauss; Geometry; Kurt Gödel; Group theory; Heat; Werner Heisenberg; Hermann von Helmholtz; William Herschel; Heinrich Rudolf Hertz; David Hilbert; Christiaan Huygens; Johannes Kepler; Max von Laue; Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz; Ernst Mach; Mathematical instruments; Mathematical modernity; Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis; James Clerk Maxwell; Marin Mersenne; Gaspard Monge; Music and science: antiquity to 1700; Music and science: since 1700; John Napier; Navigational instruments; Isaac Newton; Newtonianism; Number theory; Paradigm; Particle physics; Karl Pearson; Philosophy of science; Physics: 20th century; Max Planck; Plato; Jules Henri Poincaré; Probability; Pythagoras; Quantification; Quantum mechanics; Quantum theory; Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet; Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman; Rational mechanics; Relativity; Royal Society of London; Russian Academy of Sciences; Erwin Schrödinger; Set theory; Statistics; Time; Alan Turing; John von Neumann; Women in science: general works.