DOCSLIB.ORG

The Scientist Within

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Scientist Within COMMENT BOOKS & ARTS We see this in spellbinding biographies, from Georgina Ferry’s Dorothy Hodgkin (Granta; 1998) and Walter Isaacson’s Einstein (Simon & Schuster, 2007) to Graham Farmelo’s award-winning biography of Paul Dirac, PHYS./SPL AM. INST. The Strangest Man (Faber and Faber, 2009) — which drew praise from readers as varied as Michael Frayn, Tom Stoppard and Martin Rees. THE EVOLUTION OF A THEORY A whole spectrum of books on Charles Darwin, published to mark the 2009 bicen- tenary of his birth, illuminated the debate surrounding the emergence and implica- tions of evolutionary theory. Led by Janet Browne, who treated On The Origin itself as a biographical subject, and Adrian Desmond and James Moore, who looked at Darwin’s work on human origins, this biographic experimentation expanded in original ways. Rebecca Stott’s Darwin’s Ghosts (Blooms- bury, 2012), for example, is a prequel consist- ing of vivid portraits of early evolutionists, starting with Aristotle doing marine biology on the isle of Lesbos. Stott’s book is part of a growing trend for group biographies of scientists. These use teamwork, competition and personal rivalry to reframe science as a kind of social history. Outstanding examples cover group- ings in every century. Arabic trailblazers of the ‘dark’ ages and people of the early The history of science is about people such as Paul Dirac, as well as the discoveries they made. medieval period star in Jim Al-Khalili’s Pathfinders (Allan Lane, 2010). Lisa Jar- BIOGRAPHY dine’s Ingenious Pursuits (Little, Brown and Co., 1999) focuses on seventeenth-century European natural philosophers, and Jenny Uglow’s The Lunar Men (Faber and Faber, The scientist 2002) displays the enlightened industrial- ists of the eighteenth century. We can relish the pioneering efforts of nineteenth-century palaeontologists in Deborah Cadbury’s The within Dinosaur Hunters (Fourth Estate, 2000), and marvel at the groundbreaking work of twentieth-century physicists in Manjit Richard Holmes celebrates today’s revival of science Kumar’s Quantum (Icon Books, 2008). biography, a tradition spanning 300 years. Mathematics could be seen as the hard- est nut to crack biographically because of its abstract language. Yet Simon Singh rendered early two decades on from the emerged. We want to read about scientific it thrilling in his treasure-hunt of a group explosion in popular-science pub- work as part of a life story — to know what biography over four centuries, Fermat’s Last lishing, books by luminaries such as makes a scientist tick, and what set them Theorem (Fourth Estate, 1997). NStephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins are ticking. We are intrigued to learn that Dawk- still selling in six figures, and authors such as ins, the eminent biologist and atheist, had “a PROFILE PIONEERS Brian Cox and Rebecca Skloot are drawing normal Anglican upbringing”, was inspired But what of that earlier tradition of science a younger generation of readers. But I am by the Dr Doolittle books and taught in biography? The word ‘scientist’ was coined struck by a new emphasis — on popular- 1960s San Francisco, in the time of flower only in 1834, and there is a popular miscon- science biography. As I learned while power and demonstrations against the war ception that individual scientific ‘lives’ — researching my book The Age of Wonder in Vietnam. such as Henry Mayhew’s Young Humphry (Harper, 2008), the “life scientific” can be The form is currently undergoing unprec- Davy (1855) — are an extraordinarily gripping adventure. edented transformation. Biographers are essentially a Victorian NATURE.COM There is a noble tradition of science biog- tackling highly complex and challenging creation. In fact, as For an author’s raphy stretching back to the 1600s. Recently, areas such as X-ray crystallography, general with literary biogra- take on writing a fresh hunger to understand the making of relativity and quantum physics, explaining phy, these go back well biography, see: science through the making of scientists has them as pure adventures of the human spirit. over 300 years. In the go.nature.com/xgb9tg 498 | NATURE | VOL 489 | 27 SEPTEMBER 2012 © 2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved BOOKS & ARTS COMMENT 1680s, John Aubrey wrote Brief Lives of Wil- here have been adapting an image from characteristics can be linked to the ener- liam Harvey, Edmund Halley and Robert Book IV of Milton’s Paradise Regained — gies that both inspired and occasionally Boyle, as well as of Shakespeare and Milton. the observation that “wise men” may think impeded their research. A surprising pioneer of the form in the themselves “deep versed” in research, yet in Fourth, biographies show that error and eighteenth century was Samuel Johnson. reality may be “as children gath’ring pebbles uncertainty are central to discovery, in a Along with his dictionary and The Lives on the shore”. way that is lost in ‘the literature’, that offi- of the Most Eminent English Poets (1781), cial record of scientific endeavour. Victo- Johnson also wrote The Life of Dr Herman SETBACKS AND SERENDIPITIES rian histories of science tended to propose Boerhaave (1739), a vivid short biography In what ways do biographies, whether writ- models of unbroken, cumulative progress, of the great Dutch botanist and medical ten last year or in the seventeenth century, which encouraged the alarming triumphal- doctor who founded clinical teaching at throw light on science and scientists? The ism of classical science in the early twenti- Leiden, improved diagnostic techniques Royal Society, announcing a historic sym- eth century. Contemporary ‘scientism’ has and isolated urea. posium, Writing Scientific Biography, in perhaps inherited something of this bias. Johnson perceived that Boerhaave’s child- 2008, observed that such works “show us By contrast, individual biography reveals hood was essential to his adult science. He the human face of science: the motivations, doubt, scepticism and the historically shift- writes, for instance, of Boerhaave’s gruesome set-backs, serendipities and moments of ing boundaries of teenage leg ulcer: “his own pain taught him enlightenment in the quest for knowledge”. “There is interpretation and to compassionate others, and his experience I think they do more. First, they show a popular truth. The forthcom- of the inefficacy of the methods then in use, the crucial shaping power of childhood and misconception ing life of the nuclear incited him to attempt the discovery of oth- youth, where the scientific vocation and that individual physicist J. Robert ers more certain.” vision begin to emerge. Second, they exam- science ‘lives’ Oppenheimer by Ray Similarly, William Stukeley in his Life of ine the nature of the creative breakthrough. are essentially Monk (the inspired Newton (1752) is careful to cite “the extraor- Eureka moments are only one manifesta- a Victorian biographer of Lud- dinary pregnancy of his genius, whilst a tion. Discovery may equally be the product creation.” wig Wittgenstein and b o y ”. Stukeley gives vivid descriptions of of painful years of research, experiment and Bertrand Russell) Newton’s boyish windmills, counter levers thought, as with Darwin or Dirac. Or it may reveals just such a powerful field of political, and water clocks. Stukeley also relates the be the result of a short but intense period financial and ethical ambiguities surround- first known version of the young Newton’s of competition and rivalry, as with Francis ing US science during the cold war. famous vision of “universal gravitation” in Crick, James Watson, Rosalind Franklin Biographies can also probe originality the orchard at Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, and Linus Pauling, in the race to discover and disputed cases of priority, as in the “dis- as he contemplates the falling of an apple the structure of DNA. covery” of oxygen by Antoine Lavoisier, or from a tree: “Why shd it not go sideways, Third, biographies point to the impor- Joseph Priestley or Carl Scheele; or the the- or upwards? but constantly to the earths tance of the inner, imaginative and emo- ory of evolution by Darwin or Alfred Russel centre? ... there must be a drawing power tional life. They contradict the fallacy that Wallace. They show that at particular times, in matter. & the sum of the drawing power all scientists are icy rationalists. The great certain areas of science are intensely active in the matter of the earth must be in the US physicist Richard Feynman played and open to discovery — currently, cosmol- earths center, not in any side of the earth.” the bongos. The famously elusive chem- ogy, neuroscience and nanotechnology — (Stukeley’s original manuscript, one of the ist Henry Cavendish was a secret member while others are comparatively dormant. It treasures of the Royal Society, can be read of the notorious Cat and Bagpipes Club. is in these active areas that the linked forces at http://royalsociety.org/library/moments/ Michael Faraday was an elder of the Sande- of teamwork and rivalry are most fiercely newton-apple). manian church. James Clerk Maxwell wrote alive, and their consequences can be best The growing fascination with scientific Scottish poetry and accompanied himself understood. biography in the nineteenth century is illus- on the guitar. Alan Turing was an outstand- In The Strangest Man, for instance, Gra- trated by the supplements to the fourth, ing marathon runner. All these traits and ham Farmelo memorably compares the fifth and sixth editions of the Encyclopae- development of quantum mechanics in the dia Britannica, completed in 1824. Of 165 1920s by a team of 50 physicists to “a group lives selected for individual treatment, 35% of construction workers” labouring on an were broadly scientific. Another landmark enormous building site occupying much of was David Brewster’s The Life of Sir Isaac northern Europe. “Virtually all the builders Newton (1831), which presented the natural were male, under thirty, intensely competi- BRIDGEMANART.COM philosopher as a secular saint, “the high- tive and craving the respect of their peers as priest of science” and a man of universal well as the blessing of posterity.” genius.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Super-Curricular Suggestions
    Super- curricular suggestions Strong applicants to Cambridge and other competitive universities tend to have explored their chosen subject through wider reading outside the classroom, as well as doing very well in their GCSEs and A-levels. We call this sort of exploration ‘super-curricular’, as it builds on and enhances what you are studying in school. We do not expect you to pay for this sort of exploration and have endeavoured to provide resources that are mostly freely available. This selection of suggested reading lists and resources has been gathered from the Cambridge departmental and College websites, other universities and other sources on the internet. These lists are certainly NOT ‘required reading’ for Cambridge applicants. They simply provide some suggestions for places to start exploring your own interests in your chosen subject independently - you do not need to engage with any of the specific websites, books, podcasts etc mentioned and can easily find your own alternatives. The following lists are suggestions only. It is important to read critically by thinking carefully about the arguments, assumptions and evidence presented by the author. Reading is a great way to explore subjects that you find interesting – but there are many other ways to deepen your understanding: investigate your local museums, monuments, galleries and natural features, and think analytically about nature, machinery or the built environment. After the COVID-19 lockdown, perhaps you can visit some of these! The best thing about super-curricular activities is that there are no exams or deadlines to worry about – you are free to follow your own lines of enquiry into the areas that interest you the most.
    [Show full text]
  • Contributors to This Issue
    Contributors to this issue ACKERKNECHT, ERWIN H., is emeritus professor of medical history in Zurich, Switzerland, and the author of 12 books, among them Malaria in the Upper Mississippi Valley (1700-1900), History and Geography ofthe Most Important Diseases, and Short History ofPsychiatry. At present he is working on the history of the "diseases of wealth". ALTSCHULE, MARK, D., is currently Honorary Curator of Prints and Photographic Materials, F.A. Countway Library of Medicine; trustee and former president of the Boston Medical Library; president of Totts Gap Institute, Bangor, Pennsylvania; and biomedical consultant, Office of Naval Research, Boston. He was in the Harvard Medical School class of 1932. His last book was The Hypovolemic Anemia of Trauma (with C.R. Valeri). His next is a history of clinical medicine. ANDREWS, MARGARET W., is an Assistant Professor in the History Department of Washington State University. She received the Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia in 1979; her dissertation, supervised by John M. Norris, was on medical services in Vancouver, B.C., 1886-1920. Her work has appeared in BC Studies and the Journal ofCanadian Studies. She is currently working on the early history of public health services in B.C. and the northwestern U.S. and on the background and professional reaction to health insurance. BINET, JACQUES-LOUIS, ne a Paris 1932; maitre de conferences agrege d'hematologie, medecin des Hopitaux 1964; Professeur a Ia Faculte de medecine 1973; Chef du Departement d'Hematologie du Centre Hospitalier U niversitaire de Ia Faculte de Medecine Pitie-Salpetriere 1974; Redacteur en chef de Ia Nouvelle Revue Franr;aise d' Hematologie 1981.
    [Show full text]
  • Boerhaave: Author and Editor*
    Boerhaave: Author and Editor* Amsterdam, The Nefherlands ABSTRACT professional skill, but also with his human reac- The many facets of Herman Boerhaave's life are tions, thus approaching his personality (2). presented. He was a renowned teacher, physician, author, and editor. Discussed here are his activities as cataloger of the Vossius Collection, author of books on chemistry, botany, and medicine, and as In his student years Boerhaave became initi- editor of works by Vesalius and early Greek medi- ated into the secrets of Leyden University Li- cal writers. Printing and bookselling in hiden dur- brary and intimately acquainted with one of its ing Boerhaave's era are described. future treasures (see Fig. 1-2). From its foundation in 1575 as a reward for HERMANBoerhaave's name is familiar to a courageous defense against the long siege by everyone managing a library for the history of Spaniards, who were only driven away by water medicine. Copies of books bearing his name on pouring in through severed dikes, the trustees of the title page are still extant in great numbers in the Academy, called Curators, had shown a far- many libraries. It is a challenge for me to ap- seeing eye for the real interests of the School. proach the most famous eighteenth century A library was furnished very early in a spacious physician and teacher of medicine from the side room of the former Mantle-Beguine Church of his relations to books, libraries, and publish- (Faliede Bagijn Kerk). The very first book of ers. the library was a magnificent Bible in four lan- Thousands and thousands of books went guages, printed by the famous Plantijn.
    [Show full text]
  • Radio 4 Listings for 2 – 8 May 2020 Page 1 of 14
    Radio 4 Listings for 2 – 8 May 2020 Page 1 of 14 SATURDAY 02 MAY 2020 Professor Martin Ashley, Consultant in Restorative Dentistry at panel of culinary experts from their kitchens at home - Tim the University Dental Hospital of Manchester, is on hand to Anderson, Andi Oliver, Jeremy Pang and Dr Zoe Laughlin SAT 00:00 Midnight News (m000hq2x) separate the science fact from the science fiction. answer questions sent in via email and social media. The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4. Presenter: Greg Foot This week, the panellists discuss the perfect fry-up, including Producer: Beth Eastwood whether or not the tomato has a place on the plate, and SAT 00:30 Intrigue (m0009t2b) recommend uses for tinned tuna (that aren't a pasta bake). Tunnel 29 SAT 06:00 News and Papers (m000htmx) Producer: Hannah Newton 10: The Shoes The latest news headlines. Including the weather and a look at Assistant Producer: Rosie Merotra the papers. “I started dancing with Eveline.” A final twist in the final A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4 chapter. SAT 06:07 Open Country (m000hpdg) Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Helena Merriman Closed Country: A Spring Audio-Diary with Brett Westwood SAT 11:00 The Week in Westminster (m000j0kg) tells the extraordinary true story of a man who dug a tunnel into Radio 4's assessment of developments at Westminster the East, right under the feet of border guards, to help friends, It seems hard to believe, when so many of us are coping with family and strangers escape.
    [Show full text]
  • Radio 4 Listings for 12 – 18 January 2013 Page
    Radio 4 Listings for 12 – 18 January 2013 Page 1 of 16 SATURDAY 12 JANUARY 2013 Grade 2 listed buildings but some have been destroyed by fire Dublin and others virtually abandoned by owners who can't afford the SAT 00:00 Midnight News (b01pp62f) development work. He helps assess one of the buildings with When the writer Joseph O'Connor was a child, his mother The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. experts from English Heritage who want to produce a database would take him for walks around their Dublin neighbourhood, Followed by Weather. on the state of Grade 2 listed buildings. and point out where James Joyce and John Synge had lived and Jules also explores nearby Middleton Hall which was so worked. neglected it was used as a motorbike track. Volunteers set up a SAT 00:30 Book of the Week (b01px4q3) trust and have spent 35 years bringing it back into use. "I grew up in Dun Laoghaire, a coastal town 8 miles south of The Examined Life However, they say their work is still not done. Dublin city where there was a pier and a waterfront, and the nightly entertainment in the summer when you were a teenager Episode 5 Produced by Anne-Marie Bullock. was to walk down the pier and look at the boats and the ferries leaving for London and wonder to yourself would you go to The world bedevils us. To make sense of it, we tell ourselves Manchester or Coventry. There was no notion that you'd stay in stories.
    [Show full text]
  • Jocelyn Bell Burnell
    DAME JOCELYN BELL BURNETT Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell Jocelyn is a Northern Irish born astrophysicist and astronomer, with a lifetime of inspiring scientific leadership in research, education and public service. Born 1943 in Lurgan to Quaker parents. Didn’t excel at Lurgan College, where girls were supposed to study less academic subjects. Aged 13, her parents sent her to The Mount School, York, a Quaker boarding school, where she flourished. She then went to Glasgow University, followed by post- grad studies in radio-astronomy at New Hall, Cambridge. Part of a team which built the 4-acre radio telescope to monitor quasers. Jocelyn painstakingly analysed reams of paper output, spotting curious signals in the data which were discovered to be a new type of object, later named pulsars. Findings published in 1968, with Jocelyn’s name second on the paper, to huge media interest: her supervisor was asked about astrophysics, Jocelyn quizzed about boyfriends and hair colour! The 2 senior professors awarded Nobel Prize for the discovery, which Jocelyn accepted with good grace. Married to a civil servant, Jocelyn had to move around the country with him, so worked at Southampton, London, and Edinburgh, and also from 1973 working with the Open University, where in 1991 she became Professor of Physics, doubling the number of women physics professors in the UK. Jocelyn has received numerous accolades and awards, becoming a Dame in 2007 for her services to astronomy. In 2018 she received a Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, and donated all the £2.3 million prize money to the Bell Burnell Graduate Scholarship Fund which assists female, ethnic minority and refugee students in their research.
    [Show full text]
  • 30 March 2012 Page 1 of 17
    Radio 4 Listings for 24 – 30 March 2012 Page 1 of 17 SATURDAY 24 MARCH 2012 SAT 06:57 Weather (b01dc94s) The Scotland Bill is currently progressing through the House of The latest weather forecast. Lords, but is it going to stop independence in its tracks? Lord SAT 00:00 Midnight News (b01dc948) Forsyth Conservative says it's unlikely Liberal Democrat Lord The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Steel thinks it will. Followed by Weather. SAT 07:00 Today (b01dtd56) With John Humphrys and James Naughtie. Including Yesterday The Editor is Marie Jessel in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day. SAT 00:30 Book of the Week (b01dnn41) Tim Winton: Land's Edge - A Coastal Memoir SAT 11:30 From Our Own Correspondent (b01dtd5j) SAT 09:00 Saturday Live (b01dtd58) Afghans enjoy New Year celebrations but Lyse Doucet finds Episode 5 Mark Miodownik, Luke Wright, literacy champion Sue they are concerned about what the months ahead may bring Chapman, saved by a Labradoodle, Chas Hodges Daytrip, Sarah by Tim Winton. Millican John James travels to the west African state of Guinea-Bissau and finds unexpected charms amidst its shadows In a specially-commissioned coda, the acclaimed author Richard Coles with materials scientist Professor Mark describes how the increasingly threatened and fragile marine Miodownik, poet Luke Wright, Sue Chapman who learned to The Burmese are finding out that recent reforms in their ecology has turned him into an environmental campaigner in read and write in her sixties, Maurice Holder whose life was country have encouraged tourists to return.
    [Show full text]
  • Jim Al-Khalili Meets…
    Jim Al-Khalili Meets… Prof. Jim Al-Khalili OBE Professor of Physics, University of Surrey Jim Al-Khalili is a Professor of Physics and Professor of Public Engagement in Science based at the University of Surrey, as well as an author and broadcaster. Jim obtained his PhD from the University of Surrey in 1989 and then spent two years doing post-doctoral work at University College London. In 1991, Jim returned to the University of Surrey and was appointed as a lecturer in 1992. In 2001 Jim was promoted to senior lecturer and was promoted again in 2006 to a personal chair in Physics along with a new chair in Public Engagement in Science. Jim’s research has mainly focused on theoretical nuclear physics, where he has published widely. As well as conducting research, Jim also teaches undergraduate courses and is the departmental admissions tutor. He is active as a science communicator and has written a number of popular science books, between them translated into over twenty languages. He is a regular presenter of TV science documentaries, including the Bafta nominated Chemistry: A Volatile History, and presents the weekly Radio 4 programme, The Life Scientific. He is a recipient of the Royal Society Michael Faraday medal and the Institute of Physics Kelvin Medal. Panellists from all faculties Prof Alf Adams Distinguished Professor of Physics, FEPS, University of Surrey Distinguished Professor Alf Adams has been based at the University of Surrey since 1967, after spending two years at the University of Karlsruhe, following the completion of his PhD at the University of Leicester in 1964.
    [Show full text]
  • Herman Boerhaave
    Herman Boerhaave History of Science and Scholarship in the Netherlands, volume â The series History of Science and Scholarship in the Netherlands presents studies on a variety of subjects in the history of science, scholarship and academic institu- tions in the Netherlands. Titles in this series ". Rienk Vermij, The Calvinist Copernicans. The reception of the new astronomy in the Dutch Republic, "äæä^"æäò. áòòá, isbn ñò-åñðã-âãò-ã á. Gerhard Wiesenfeldt, Leerer Raum in Minervas Haus. Experimentelle Natur- lehre an der Universita« t Leiden, "åæä^"æ"ä.áòòá,isbn ñò-åñðã-ââñ-ò â. Rina Knoeff, Herman Boerhaave ,"ååð^"æâð). Calvinist chemist and physician. áòòá, isbn ñò-åñðã-âãá-ò ã. Johanna Levelt Sengers, How fluids unmix. Discoveries by the School of Van der Waals and Kamerlingh Onnes. áòòá, isbn ñò-åñðã-âäæ-ñ Editorial Board K. van Berkel, University of Groningen W.Th.M. Frijhoff, Free University of Amsterdam A. van Helden, Utrecht University W.E. Krul, University of Groningen A. de Swaan, Amsterdam School of Sociological Research R.P.W. Visser, Utrecht University Herman Boerhaave 7"ååð-"æâð) Calvinist chemist and physician Rina Knoeff Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Amsterdam áòòá ß áòòá Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy- ing, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the pub- lisher. Edita knaw, P.O. Box "ñ"á", "òòò gc Amsterdam, the Netherlands [email protected], www.knaw.nl/edita isbn ñò-åñðã-âãá-ò The paper in this publication meets the requirements of *? iso-norm ñæòå 7"ññã) for permanence For my parents Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself, and the more he tries to conceal himself the more clearly will his character appear in spite of him.
    [Show full text]
  • HUK+Adult+FW1920+Catalogue+-+
    Saving You By (author) Charlotte Nash Sep 17, 2019 | Paperback $24.99 | Three escaped pensioners. One single mother. A road trip to rescue her son. The new emotionally compelling page-turner by Australia's Charlotte Nash In their tiny pale green cottage under the trees, Mallory Cook and her five-year- old son, Harry, are a little family unit who weather the storms of life together. Money is tight after Harry's father, Duncan, abandoned them to expand his business in New York. So when Duncan fails to return Harry after a visit, Mallory boards a plane to bring her son home any way she can. During the journey, a chance encounter with three retirees on the run from their care home leads Mallory on an unlikely group road trip across the United States. 9780733636479 Zadie, Ernie and Jock each have their own reasons for making the journey and English along the way the four of them will learn the lengths they will travel to save each other - and themselves. 384 pages Saving You is the beautiful, emotionally compelling page-turner by Charlotte Nash, bestselling Australian author of The Horseman and The Paris Wedding. Subject If you love the stories of Jojo Moyes and Fiona McCallum you will devour this FICTION / Family Life / General book. 'I was enthralled... Nash's skilled storytelling will keep you turning pages until Distributor the very end.' FLEUR McDONALD Hachette Book Group Contributor Bio Charlotte Nash is the bestselling author of six novels, including four set in country Australia, and The Paris Wedding, which has been sold in eight countries and translated into multiple languages.
    [Show full text]
  • In the Shadow of Thunberg and Sparrman Hendrik Jacob Wikar at the Cape I
    GUNNAR BROBERG In the Shadow of Thunberg and Sparrman Hendrik Jacob Wikar at the Cape I ; weden has had many encounters with South Africa. Already in the middle Sof the seventeenth century there is a remarkable description on the new­ ly established Cape Province, its settlers and natural history written by Nils , Matsson Kioping - yes he was from Koping - and published several rimes in that century and the next. At the turn of the eighteenth century we find a disserration in Uppsala presided over by the professor of physics Harald Valle­ rius treating the geography of the Cape.' During this period there had been a number of Swedish immigrants to South Africa, among them Olof Bergh who wrote a much later published account and who established a Swedish dynasty at the Cape. Before 1800 about fifty Swedes had setrled in Sourh Africa.' During the Linnaean era, collaboration berween the Swedish and Dutch East India companies made travel to Sourh Africa more feasible.' Linnaeus wrote to his fTiend and patron Count Carl GustafTessin that "There is no place in the world with so many rare plants. animals, insects, and other wonders of Nature as Africa, and it seems as if they have been concentrated to the Cape.'" In Plfll/tfie rariores flfricfll1f1e (1760) he states [hat where [he world seems to end there "Africa monstrifcra" has contracted the narural miracles. Linnaeus J corresponded with the governor of [he Cape Colony, Rijk Tulbagh, whom he named the genus Tttlbllghill af[er.' He tried to send students there - Pehr Kalm, Peter Forsskal, Marren Kahler and Engelberr Jorlin - but unsuccessfully.' Some words on Carl Henrie Wan man, who was charged with defending Linnaeus' dissertation Flora cflpensis (1759), a fai rly simple piece of Linnea­ na but full of enthusiasm for [he Cape region.
    [Show full text]
  • On the Role of Newtonian Analogies in Eighteenth-Century Life Science VITALISM and PROVISIONALLY INEXPLICABLE EXPLICATIVE DEVICES Charles Wolfe
    On the Role of Newtonian Analogies in Eighteenth-Century Life Science VITALISM AND PROVISIONALLY INEXPLICABLE EXPLICATIVE DEVICES Charles Wolfe To cite this version: Charles Wolfe. On the Role of Newtonian Analogies in Eighteenth-Century Life Science VITAL- ISM AND PROVISIONALLY INEXPLICABLE EXPLICATIVE DEVICES. Newton and Empiricism, 2014. hal-02069997 HAL Id: hal-02069997 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02069997 Submitted on 26 Mar 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. On the role of Newtonian analogies in eighteenth-century life science: Vitalism and provisionally inexplicable explicative devices Charles T. Wolfe Centre for History of Science, Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences Ghent University [email protected] To appear in Zvi Biener and Eric Schliesser, eds., Newton and Empiricism (OUP, forthcoming) Abstract Newton’s impact on Enlightenment natural philosophy has been studied at great length, in its experimental, methodological and ideological ramifications. One aspect that has received fairly little attention is the role Newtonian “analogies” played in the formulation of new conceptual schemes in physiology, medicine, and life science as a whole. So-called ‘medical Newtonians’ like Pitcairne and Keill have been studied; but they were engaged in a more literal project of directly transposing, or seeking to transpose, Newtonian laws into quantitative models of the body.
    [Show full text]