Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought

Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought PDF Author: Gerald James Holton
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780674877474
Category : Physics
Languages : en
Pages : 499

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Book Description

Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought

Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought PDF Author: Gerald James Holton
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780674877474
Category : Physics
Languages : en
Pages : 499

Get Book Here

Book Description


Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought

Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought PDF Author: Gerald James Holton
Publisher: Cambridge, Mass : Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674877467
Category : Ciencia - Filosofía
Languages : en
Pages : 495

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Book Description


Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought

Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought PDF Author: Gerald Holton
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674877481
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 514

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Book Description
The highly acclaimed first edition of this major work convincingly established Gerald Holton’s analysis of the ways scientific ideas evolve. His concept of “themata,” induced from case studies with special attention to the work of Einstein, has become one of the chief tools for understanding scientific progress. It is now one of the main approaches in the study of the initiation and acceptance of individual scientific insights. Three principal consequences of this perspective extend beyond the study of the history of science itself. It provides philosophers of science with the kind of raw material on which some of the best work in their field is based. It helps intellectual historians to redefine the place of modern science in contemporary culture by identifying influences on the scientific imagination. And it prompts educators to reexamine the conventional concepts of education in science. In this new edition, Holton has masterfully reshaped the contents and widened the coverage. Significant new material has been added, including a penetrating account of the advent of quantum physics in the United States, and a broad consideration of the integrity of science, as exemplified in the work of Niels Bohr. In addition, a revised introduction and a new postscript provide an updated perspective on the role of themata. The result of this thoroughgoing revision is an indispensable volume for scholars and students of scientific thought and intellectual history.

Einstein, History, and Other Passions

Einstein, History, and Other Passions PDF Author: Gerald James Holton
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674004337
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
"[The] book makes a wonderfully cohesive whole. It is rich in ideas, elegantly expressed. I highly recommend it to any serious student of science and culture."--Lucy Horwitz, Boston Book Review "An important and lasting contribution to a more profound understanding of the place of science in our culture."--Hans C. von Baeyer, Boston Sunday Globe "[Holton's] themes are central to an understanding of the nature of science, and Holton does an excellent job of identifying and explaining key features of the scientific enterprise, both in the historical sense and in modern science...I know of no better informed scientist who has studied the nature of science for half a century."--Ron Good, Science and Education Through his rich exploration of Einstein's thought, Gerald Holton shows how the best science depends on great intuitive leaps of imagination, and how science is indeed the creative expression of the traditions of Western civilization.

Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought

Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought PDF Author: Gerald Holton
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 067426455X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 514

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Book Description
The highly acclaimed first edition of this major work convincingly established Gerald Holton’s analysis of the ways scientific ideas evolve. His concept of “themata,” induced from case studies with special attention to the work of Einstein, has become one of the chief tools for understanding scientific progress. It is now one of the main approaches in the study of the initiation and acceptance of individual scientific insights. Three principal consequences of this perspective extend beyond the study of the history of science itself. It provides philosophers of science with the kind of raw material on which some of the best work in their field is based. It helps intellectual historians to redefine the place of modern science in contemporary culture by identifying influences on the scientific imagination. And it prompts educators to reexamine the conventional concepts of education in science. In this new edition, Holton has masterfully reshaped the contents and widened the coverage. Significant new material has been added, including a penetrating account of the advent of quantum physics in the United States, and a broad consideration of the integrity of science, as exemplified in the work of Niels Bohr. In addition, a revised introduction and a new postscript provide an updated perspective on the role of themata. The result of this thoroughgoing revision is an indispensable volume for scholars and students of scientific thought and intellectual history.

Physics, the Human Adventure

Physics, the Human Adventure PDF Author: Gerald James Holton
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813529080
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 604

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Book Description
Of Some Trigonometric Relations -- Vector Algebra.

Science and Anti-science

Science and Anti-science PDF Author: Gerald James Holton
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674792982
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
What is good science? What goal--if any--is the proper end of scientific activity? Is there a legitimating authority that scientists mayclaim? Howserious athreat are the anti-science movements? These questions have long been debated but, as Gerald Holton points out, every era must offer its own responses. This book examines these questions not in the abstract but shows their historic roots and the answers emerging from the scientific and political controversies of this century. Employing the case-study method and the concept of scientific thematathat he has pioneered, Holton displays the broad scope of his insight into the workings of science: from the influence of Ernst Mach on twentiethcentury physicists, biologists, psychologists, and other thinkers to the rhetorical strategies used in the work of Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, and others; from the bickering between Thomas Jefferson and the U.S. Congress over the proper form of federal sponsorship of scientific research to philosophical debates since Oswald Spengier over whether our scientific knowledge will ever be "complete." In a masterful final chapter, Holton scrutinizes the "anti-science phenomenon," the increasingly common opposition to science as practiced today. He approaches this contentious issue by examining the world views and political ambitions of the proponents of science as well as those of its opponents-the critics of "establishment science" (including even those who fear that science threatens to overwhelm the individual in the postmodern world) and the adherents of "alternative science" (Creationists, New Age "healers," astrologers). Through it all runs the thread of the author's deep historical knowledge and his humanistic understanding of science in modern culture. Science and Anti-Science will be of great interest not only to scientists and scholars in the field of science studies but also to educators, policymalcers, and all those who wish to gain a fuller understanding of challenges to and doubts about the role of science in our lives today.

The Laboratory of the Mind

The Laboratory of the Mind PDF Author: James Robert Brown
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134865791
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
Thought experiments are performed in the laboratory of the mind. Beyond this metaphor it is difficult to say just what these remarkable devices for investigating nature are or how they work. Though most scientists and philosophers would admit their great importance, there has been very little serious study of them. This volume is the first book-length investigation of thought experiments. Starting with Galileo's argument on falling bodies, Brown describes numerous examples of the most influential thought experiments from the history of science. Following this introduction to the subject, some substantial and provocative claims are made, the principle being that some thought experiments should be understood in the same way that platonists understand mathematical activity: as an intellectual grasp of an independently existing abstract realm. With its clarity of style and structure, The Laboratory of the Mind will find readers among all philosophers of science as well as scientists who have puzzled over how thought experiments work.

Einstein's Generation

Einstein's Generation PDF Author: Richard Staley
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226770575
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 505

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Book Description
'Einstein's Generation' offers a new approach to the origins of modern physics by exploring both the material culture that stimulated relativity and the reaction of Einstein's colleagues to his pioneering work.

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein PDF Author: Peter C. Aichelburg
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3322910806
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
The Development of the Theory of Relativity.- Cosmology.- Gravitational Radiation.- Black Holes.- The Black Hole: An Imaginary Conversation with Albert Einstein.- Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Realty Be Considered Complete.- Einstein's Contribution to Statistical Mechanics.- "On the History of the Special Relativity Theory".- Einstein's Model for Constructing a Scientific Theory.- Einstein's Treatment of Theoretical Concepts.- Einstein's Importance to Physics, Philosophy and Politics.- Einstein and Zionism.- Birth and Rôle of the GRG-Organization and the Cultivation of Interna.