Recreating Newton

Recreating Newton PDF Author: Rebekah Higgitt
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317314956
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Get Book

Book Description
Examines Isaac Newton's changing legacy during the nineteenth century. This book focuses on 1820-70, a period that saw the creation of the specialized and secularized role of the 'scientist'. It shows how debates about Newton's character stimulated historical scholarship and led to the development of a new expertise in the history of science.

Recreating Newton

Recreating Newton PDF Author: Rebekah Higgitt
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317314956
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Get Book

Book Description
Examines Isaac Newton's changing legacy during the nineteenth century. This book focuses on 1820-70, a period that saw the creation of the specialized and secularized role of the 'scientist'. It shows how debates about Newton's character stimulated historical scholarship and led to the development of a new expertise in the history of science.

Recreating Newton

Recreating Newton PDF Author: Rebekah Higgitt
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317314948
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250

Get Book

Book Description
Examines Isaac Newton's changing legacy during the nineteenth century. This book focuses on 1820-70, a period that saw the creation of the specialized and secularized role of the 'scientist'. It shows how debates about Newton's character stimulated historical scholarship and led to the development of a new expertise in the history of science.

The Newton Papers

The Newton Papers PDF Author: Sarah Dry
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199354197
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Get Book

Book Description
When Isaac Newton died in 1727 without a will, he left behind a wealth of papers that, when examined, gave his followers and his family a deep sense of unease. Some of what they contained was wildly heretical and alchemically obsessed, hinting at a Newton altogether stranger and less palatable than the one enshrined in Westminster Abbey as the paragon of English rationality. These manuscripts had the potential to undermine not merely Newton's reputation, but that of the scientific method he embodied. They were immediately suppressed as "unfit to be printed," and, aside from brief, troubling glimpses spread across centuries, the papers would remain hidden from sight for more than seven generations. In The Newton Papers, Sarah Dry illuminates the tangled history of these private writings over the course of nearly three hundred years, from the long span of Newton's own life into the present day. The writings, on subjects ranging from secret alchemical formulas to impassioned rejections of the Holy Trinity, would eventually come to light as they moved through the hands of relatives, collectors, and scholars. The story of their disappearance, dispersal, and rediscovery is populated by a diverse cast of characters who pursued and possessed the papers, from economist John Maynard Keynes to controversial Jewish Biblical scholar Abraham Yahuda. Dry's captivating narrative moves between these varied personalities, depicting how, as they chased the image of Newton through the thickets of his various obsessions, these men became obsessed themselves with the allure of defining the "true" Newton. Dry skillfully accounts for the ways with which Newton's pursuers have approached his papers over centuries. Ultimately, The Newton Papers shows how Newton has been made and re-made throughout history by those seeking to reconcile the cosmic contradictions of an extraordinarily complex man.

Isaac Newton and Natural Philosophy

Isaac Newton and Natural Philosophy PDF Author: Niccolò Guicciardini
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1780239483
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Get Book

Book Description
Isaac Newton is one of the greatest scientists in history, yet the spectrum of his interests was much broader than that of most contemporary scientists. In fact, Newton would have defined himself not as a scientist, but as a natural philosopher. He was deeply involved in alchemical, religious, and biblical studies, and in the later part of his life he played a prominent role in British politics, economics, and the promotion of scientific research. Newton’s pivotal work Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which sets out his laws of universal gravitation and motion, is regarded as one of the most important works in the history of science. Niccolò Guicciardini’s enlightening biography offers an accessible introduction both to Newton’s celebrated research in mathematics, optics, mechanics, and astronomy and to how Newton viewed these scientific fields in relation to his quest for the deepest secrets of the universe, matter theory and religion. Guicciardini sets Newton the natural philosopher in the troubled context of the religious and political debates ongoing during Newton’s life, a life spanning the English Civil Wars, the Restoration, the Glorious Revolution, and the Hanoverian succession. Incorporating the latest Newtonian scholarship, this fast-paced biography broadens our perception of both this iconic figure and the great scientific revolution of the early modern period.

The Trinity Circle

The Trinity Circle PDF Author: William J. Ashworth
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822988453
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Get Book

Book Description
The Trinity Circle explores the creation of knowledge in nineteenth-century England, when any notion of a recognizably modern science was still nearly a century off, religion still infused all ways of elite knowing, and even those who denied its relevance had to work extremely hard to do so. The rise of capitalism during this period—embodied by secular faith, political radicalism, science, commerce, and industry—was, according to Anglican critics, undermining this spiritual world and challenging it with a superficial material one: a human-centric rationalist society hell-bent on measurable betterment via profit, consumption, and a prevalent notion of progress. Here, William J. Ashworth places the politics of science within a far more contested context. By focusing on the Trinity College circle, spearheaded from Cambridge by the polymath William Whewell, he details an ongoing struggle between the Established Church and a quest for change to the prevailing social hierarchy. His study presents a far from unified view of science and religion at a time when new ways of thinking threatened to divide England and even the Trinity College itself.

From Citizens to Subjects

From Citizens to Subjects PDF Author: Rebekah Higgitt
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Get Book

Book Description
From Citizens to Subjects challenges the common assertion in historiography that Enlightenment-era centralization and rationalization brought progress and prosperity to all European states, arguing instead that centralization failed to improve the socio-economic position of urban residents in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth over a 100-year period. Murphy examines the government of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the several imperial administrations that replaced it after the Partitions, comparing and contrasting their relationships with local citizenry, minority communities, and nobles who enjoyed considerable autonomy in their management of the cities of present-day Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus. He shows how the failure of Enlightenment-era reform was a direct result of the inherent defects in the reformers' visions, rather than from sabotage by shortsighted local residents. Reform in Poland-Lithuania effectively destroyed the existing system of complexities and imprecisions that had allowed certain towns to flourish, while also fostering a culture of self-government and civic republicanism among city citizens of all ranks and religions. By the mid-nineteenth century, the increasingly immobile post-Enlightenment state had transformed activist citizens into largely powerless subjects without conferring the promised material and economic benefits of centralization.

Describing the Hand of God

Describing the Hand of God PDF Author: Robert Brennan
Publisher: James Clarke & Company
ISBN: 0227905326
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 302

Get Book

Book Description
The question of divine agency in the world remains one important unresolved underlying obstacle in the dialogue between theology and science. Modern notions of divine agency are shown to have developed out of the interaction of three factors in early modernity. Two are well known: late medieval perfect-being theology and the early modern application of the notion of the two books of God's revelation to the understanding of the natural order. It is argued the third is the early modern appropriation of theAugustinian doctrine of inspiration. This assumes the soul's existence and a particular description of divine agency in humans, which became more generally applied to divine agency in nature. Whereas Newton explicitly draws the parallel between divine agency in humans and that in nature, Darwin rejects its supposed perfection and Huxley raises serious questions regarding the traditional understanding of the soul. This book offers an alternative incarnational description of divine agency, freeing consideration of divine agency from being dependent on resolving the complex issues of perfect-being theology and the existence of the soul. In conversation with Barth's pneumatology, this proposal is shown to remain theologically coherent and plausible while resolving or avoiding a range of known difficulties in the science-theology dialogue.

The History and Poetics of Scientific Biography

The History and Poetics of Scientific Biography PDF Author: Thomas Söderqvist
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317028902
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 286

Get Book

Book Description
Biographies of scientists carry an increasingly prominent role in today's publishing climate. Traditional historical and sociological accounts of science are complemented by narratives that emphasize the importance of the scientific subject in the production of science. Not least is the realization that the role of science in culture is much more accessible when presented through the lives of its practitioners. Taken as a genre, such biographies play an important role in the public understanding of science. In recent years there has been an increasing number of monographs and collections about biography in general and literary biography in particular. However, biographies of scientists, engineers and medical doctors have rarely been the topic of scholarly inquiry. As such this volume of essays will be welcomed by those interested in the genre of science biography, and who wish to re-examine its history, foundational problems and theoretical implications. Borrowing approaches and methods from cultural studies and the history, philosophy and sociology of science, the contributions cover a broad range of subjects, periods and locations. By presenting such a rich diversity of essays, the volume is able to chart the reoccurring conceptual problems and devices that have influenced scientific biographies from classical antiquity to the present day. In so doing it provides a compelling overview of the history of the genre, suggesting that the different valuations given scientific biography over time have been largely fuelled by vested professional interests.

A Sincere and Teachable Heart

A Sincere and Teachable Heart PDF Author: Richard Bellon
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004263357
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 285

Get Book

Book Description
Richard Bellon’s A Sincere and Teachable Heart: Self-Denying Virtue in British Intellectual Life, 1736-1859 analyzes how principles of conduct and duty grounded in self-discipline pervasively influenced British intellectual life in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The Encyclopedia of Romantic Literature, 3 Volume Set

The Encyclopedia of Romantic Literature, 3 Volume Set PDF Author: Frederick Burwick
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1405188103
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 1767

Get Book

Book Description
The Encyclopedia of Romantic Literature is an authoritative three-volume reference work that covers British artistic, literary, and intellectual movements between 1780 and 1830, within the context of European, transatlantic and colonial historical and cultural interaction. Comprises over 275 entries ranging from 1,000 to 6,500 words arranged in A-Z format across three fully cross-referenced volumes Written by an international cast of leading and emerging scholars Entries explore genre development in prose, poetry, and drama of the Romantic period, key authors and their works, and key themes Also available online as part of the Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Literature, providing 24/7 access and powerful searching, browsing and cross-referencing capabilities