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books tagged “History of science” (history of science)
books tagged “History of science”
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Advent of the Algorithm: The Idea That Rules the Worldby David BerlinskiISBN 0756761662 (0-7567-6166-2)
Hardcover, Diane Pub Co
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Adversaries and Authorities: Investigations into Ancient Greek and Chinese Scienceby G. E. R. Lloyd, Lorraine Daston, Dorothy Ross, Quentin Skinner, James TullyISBN 0521556953 (0-521-55695-3)
Softcover, Cambridge University Press
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Alpha and Omega: The Search for the Beginning and End of the Universeby Charles SeifeISBN 0670031798 (0-670-03179-8)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
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Ancient Engineers: Technology and Invention from the Earliest Times to the Renaissanceby L. Sprague de CampISBN 0880294566 (0-88029-456-6)
Hardcover, Barnes & Noble, Incorporated
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ancient Engineers: Technology and Invention from the Earliest Times to the Renaissance'Book summary:A reasonably scholarly but nonetheless accessible history of the great engineering feats of the human race up to the Renaissance, including a great chapter on Oriental architecture, a topic often neglected by such surveys. [via]
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Annie's Box: Charles Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolutionby Randal KeynesISBN 1841150606 (1-84115-060-6)
Hardcover, Fourth Estate
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Annie's Box: Charles Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution'Book summary:Annie's Box contains the brief life and premature death of Annie, Charles Darwin's eldest daughter, and opens up to present a humane, warm portrait of the most revolutionary of evolutionary thinkers. The key here is perhaps "premature": Annie was only 10 years old when she died, probably of tuberculosis, yet her death made Charles even more acutely conscious of the elimination of the weakest as he formulated his "big species book", The Origin of Species. Darkly he even pondered, along Lamarck's lines, whether he had contributed to her death by passing on characteristics he'd acquired during his lifetime, for he was a generally sickly man. The other question raised was one of divine influence, and Annie's death caused him to ask hard questions about his faith. Another daughter, Etty, remembered him mentioning her only twice again for the rest of his life, yet 35 years on from her death, in 1851, he intimately recalled for an article her first smile at eight weeks old.
The box in question was a writing case, into which were put Annie's "childish things" when she died, such as her writing equipment, her embroidery, some letters and some notes. And, of course, the family's grief. Great-great-grandson Randal Keynes' handling of his material is exemplary, drawing on the memoirs of Darwin's children, family papers, letters and a host of scholarship. The evocative picture described is unique to the Darwin family, but it's also very much a picture of its time. Infant mortality was commonplace in the mid-19th century, yet Keynes draws out the intense, prolonged mourning felt by Darwin and wife Emma for Annie, despite having many subsequent children. With a supporting cast including Charles Dickens, Joseph Hooker, Alfred Wallace Russel, TH Huxley, and George Eliot, Keynes presents a poignant yet unsentimental account, laying out Darwin's thinking with commendable and precise acumen, yet suggesting most persuasively how his personal circumstance rippled the deep water of his theories. --David Vincent [via]
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Apes, Angels and Victorians.by William IrvineISBN 0070320489 (0-07-032048-9)
Hardcover, McGraw-Hill
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The Art of Memoryby YatesISBN 071265545X (0-7126-5545-X)
Softcover, Pimlico
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Art of Memory'Book summary:In this classic study of how people learned to retain vast stores of knowledge before the invention of the printed page, Frances A. Yates traces the art of memory from its treatment by Greek orators, through its Gothic transformations in the Middle Ages, to the occult forms it took in the Renaissance, and finally to its use in the seventeenth century. This book, the first to relate the art of memory to the history of culture as a whole, was revolutionary when it first appeared and continues to mesmerize readers with its lucid and revelatory insights.[via]More editions of The Art of Memory:
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The Baltimore Case: A Trial of Politics, Science, and Characterby David J. KevlesISBN 0393319709 (0-393-31970-9)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Baltimore Case: A Trial of Politics, Science, and Character'Book summary:In a perfect world, science wouldn't be done by human beings, since despite our best efforts, we aren't truly objective about anything. When personality and emotion inevitably get mixed up with science, sparks can fly. The most notorious such conflagration in recent times was The Baltimore Case, a decade-long dispute between supposedly objective scientists that resulted in excruciating trials, sensational headlines, and damaged careers and lives. Historian Daniel Kevles tells the story of the accusations of fraud leveled by Margot O'Toole toward her colleagues, Thereza Imanishi-Kari and Nobel Prize-winner David Baltimore. Kevles first explains the controversial experimental results and the paper published outlining them. O'Toole was unable to reproduce the results of Imanishi-Kari and accused her of falsifying data, also implicating the high-profile Baltimore, coauthor of the original paper. In the following years, all participants in the investigation were subjected to dehumanizing, humiliating scrutiny--including a congressional inquiry not unlike a mini-witch-hunt--and nasty comments gleefully reported by a media eager for a big scientific scandal. Kevles comes down on the side of the self-admittedly sloppy Imanishi-Kari (who was officially exonerated in 1996) and Baltimore, painting O'Toole as a well-motivated but overenthusiastic watchdog manipulated by embarrassingly eager investigators. This book is a valuable lesson in how uneasily humanity and science share the laboratory. Even our best and brightest can be brought low by jealousy, carelessness, and deception. --Therese Littleton [via]
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Before Big Science: The Pursuit of Modern Chemistry and Physics 1800-1940by Mary Jo NyeISBN 0674063821 (0-674-06382-1)
Softcover, Harvard Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Before Big Science: The Pursuit of Modern Chemistry and Physics 1800-1940'Book summary:Today's vast multinational scientific monoliths bear little resemblance to the modest laboratories of the early nineteenth century. Yet early in the nineteenth century--when heat and electricity were still counted among the elements--changes were already under way that would revolutionize chemistry and physics into the "big science" of the late twentieth century, expanding tiny, makeshift laboratories into bustling research institutes and replacing the scientific amateurs and generalist savants of the early Victorian era with the professional specialists of contemporary physical science.
Mary Jo Nye traces the social and intellectual history of the physical sciences from the early 1800s to the beginning of the Second World War, examining the sweeping transformation of scientific institutions and professions during the period and the groundbreaking experiments that fueled that change, from the earliest investigations of molecular chemistry and field dynamics to the revolutionary breakthroughs of quantum mechanics, relativity theory, and nuclear science.
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The Birth of the Clinicby Michel FoucaultISBN 0415307724 (0-415-30772-4)
Softcover, Routledge
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Birth of the Clinic'Book summary:In this remarkable book Michel Foucault, one of the most influential thinkers of recent times, calls us to look critically at specific historical events in order to uncover new layers of significance. In doing so, he challenges our assumptions not only about history, but also about the nature of language and reason, even of truth. The scope of such an undertaking is vast, but by means of his uniquely engaging narrative style, Foucaults penetrating gaze is skilfully able to confront our own. After reading his words our perceptions are never quite the same again.
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The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perceptionby Michel FoucaultISBN 0394710975 (0-394-71097-5)
Hardcover, Vintage Books
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Boltzmann's Atom : The Great Debate That Launched a Revolution in Physicsby David LindleyISBN 0684851865 (0-684-85186-5)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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Connectionsby James BurkeISBN 0316116726 (0-316-11672-6)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Connections'Book summary:You can make all the plans you will, plot to make a fortune in the commodities market, speculate on developing trends: all will likely come to naught, for "however carefully you plan for the future, someone else's actions will inevitably modify the way your plans turn out." So writes the English scholar and documentary producer James Burke in his sparkling book Connections, a favorite of historically minded readers ever since its first publication in 1978. Taking a hint from Jacob Bronowski's Ascent of Man, Burke charts the course of technological innovation from ancient times to the present, but always with a subversive eye for things happening in spite of, and not because of, their inventors' intentions. Burke gives careful attention to the role of accident in human history. In his opening pages, for instance, he writes of the invention of uniform coinage, an invention that hinged on some unknown Anatolian prospector's discovering that a fleck of gold rubbed against a piece of schist--a "touchstone"--would leave a mark indicating its quality. Just so, we owe the invention of modern printing to Johann Gutenberg's training as a goldsmith, for his knowledge of the properties of metals enabled him to develop a press whose letterforms would not easily wear down. With Gutenberg's invention, Burke notes, came a massive revolution in the European economy, for, as he writes, "the easier it is to communicate, the faster change happens." Burke's book is a splendid and educational entertainment for our fast-changing time. --Gregory McNamee [via]
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The Construction of Modern Science: Mechanisms and Mechanicsby Richard S. WestfallISBN 0521292956 (0-521-29295-6)
Softcover, Cambridge Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Construction of Modern Science: Mechanisms and Mechanics'Book summary:This introduction to the history of science in the seventeenth century examines the so-called 'scientific revolution' in terms of the interplay between two major themes. The Platonic-Pythagorean tradition looked on nature in geometric terms with the conviction that the cosmos was constructed according to the principles of mathematical order, while the mechanical philosophy conceived of nature as a huge machine and sought to explain the hidden mechanisms behind phenomena. Pursuing different goals, these two movements of thought tended to conflict with each other, and more than the obviously mathematical sciences were affected - the influence spread as far as chemistry and the life sciences. As this book demonstrates, the full fruition of the scientific revolution required a resolution of the tension between the two dominant trends. [via]
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The Creationistsby Ronald M. NumbersISBN 0679401040 (0-679-40104-0)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Designby Ronald L. NumbersISBN 0674023390 (0-674-02339-0)
Softcover, Harvard Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design'Book summary:In light of the embattled status of evolutionary theory, particularly as "intelligent design" makes headway against Darwinism in the schools and in the courts, this now classic account of the roots of creationism assumes new relevance. Expanded and updated to account for the appeal of intelligent design and the global spread of creationism, The Creationists offers a thorough, clear, and balanced overview of the arguments and figures at the heart of the debate.
Praised by both creationists and evolutionists for its comprehensiveness, the book meticulously traces the dramatic shift among Christian fundamentalists from acceptance of the earth's antiquity to the insistence of present-day scientific creationists that most fossils date back to Noah's flood and its aftermath. Focusing especially on the rise of this "flood geology," Ronald L. Numbers chronicles the remarkable resurgence of antievolutionism since the 1960s, as well as the creationist movement's tangled religious roots in the theologies of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Adventists, among others. His book offers valuable insight into the origins of various "creation science" think tanks and the people behind them. It also goes a long way toward explaining how creationism, until recently viewed as a "peculiarly American" phenomenon, has quietly but dynamically spread internationally--and found its expression outside Christianity in Judaism and Islam.
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The Crime of Galileoby Giorgio De SantillanaISBN 0809436272 (0-8094-3627-2)
Softcover, Time-Life Books
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The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physicsby Gary Zukav, David FinkelsteinISBN 055326382X (0-553-26382-X)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Dancing Wu Li Masters : An Overview of the New Physics'Book summary:At an Esalen Institute meeting in 1976, tai chi master Al Huang said that the Chinese word for physics is Wu Li, "patterns of organic energy." Journalist Gary Zukav and the others present developed the idea of physics as the dance of the Wu Li Masters--the teachers of physical essence. Zukav explains the concept further:
The Wu Li Master dances with his student. The Wu Li Master does not teach, but the student learns. The Wu Li Master always begins at the center, the heart of the matter.... This book deals not with knowledge, which is always past tense anyway, but with imagination, which is physics come alive, which is Wu Li.... Most people believe that physicists are explaining the world. Some physicists even believe that, but the Wu Li Masters know that they are only dancing with it.
The "new physics" of Zukav's 1979 book comprises quantum theory, particle physics, and relativity. Even as these theories age they haven't percolated all that far into the collective consciousness; they're too far removed from mundane human experience not to need introduction. The Dancing Wu Li Masters remains an engaging, accessible way to meet the most profound and mind-altering insights of 20th-century science. --Mary Ellen Curtin [via]
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- The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics: ISBN 0688084028 (0-688-08402-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins - The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics: ISBN 0688034020 (0-688-03402-0)
Hardcover, Morrow - The Dancing Wu Li Masters : An Overview of the New Physics: ISBN 055326382X (0-553-26382-X)
Softcover, Bantam Books
- The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics: ISBN 0688084028 (0-688-08402-8)
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Darwin, His Daughter and Human Evolutionby Randal KeynesISBN 1573229555 (1-57322-955-5)
Softcover, Riverhead Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Darwin, His Daughter and Human Evolution'Book summary:"A profoundly moving book . . . itself a work of genius." (Publishing News, UK)
In a chest of drawers bequeathed by his grandmother, author Randal Keynes found the writing case of Charles Darwin's beloved daughter Annie, who died at the age of ten. Within the box, among the typical keepsakes of a Victorian girlhood, were the notes Darwin kept throughout Annie's illness and the eloquent and devastating eulogy he delivered at her funeral. For Keynes, a great-great grandson of Darwin, Annie's writing case became the point of entry into the story of Darwin's family life and its influence on the development of his revolutionary understanding of man's place in nature.
Keynes takes us into the family's private world and draws on a wealth of previously unseen material to tell the story of Darwin's home life and his private struggle with his faith. Particularly fascinating is the revealing portrait of Emma, Darwin's wife-a complex and freethinking woman, in many ways ahead of her time.
As Darwin's theories continue to shape so much of our thinking about the roots of human nature, Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution reveals the personal experience from which he drew his most deeply held ideas. [via]More editions of Darwin, His Daughter and Human Evolution:
The Dinosaur Hunters: A Story of Scientific Rivalry and the Discovery of the Prehistoric Worldby Deborah CadburyISBN 1857029593 (1-85702-959-3)
Hardcover, Fourth Estate
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The Eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-Darwinian Evolution Theories in the Decades Around 1900by Peter J. BowlerISBN 080184391X (0-8018-4391-X)
Softcover, Johns Hopkins Univ Pr
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- The Eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-Darwinian Evolution Theories in the Decades Around 1900: ISBN 0801829321 (0-8018-2932-1)
Hardcover, Johns Hopkins University Press - The Eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-Darwinian Evolution Theories in the Decades Around 1900: ISBN 080184391X (0-8018-4391-X)
Softcover, Johns Hopkins Univ Pr
- The Eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-Darwinian Evolution Theories in the Decades Around 1900: ISBN 0801829321 (0-8018-2932-1)
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The Edge of Objectivity: An Essay in the History of Scientific Ideasby Charles Coulston GillispieISBN 0691023506 (0-691-02350-6)
Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Edge of Objectivity: An Essay in the History of Scientific Ideas'Book summary:From Galileo's analysis of motion to the theories of evolution and relativity, Charles Gillispie takes us on a masterly tour of the world of scientific ideas. The history of modern science is portrayed here as the development of objectivity through the study of nature.
In the mid-1950s, a young professor at Princeton named Charles Gillispie began teaching Humanities 304, one of the first undergraduate courses offered anywhere in the world on the history of science. From start to finish--Galileo to Einstein--Gillispie introduced the students to the key ideas and individuals in science. The Edge of Objectivity arose out of this course.
It must have been a lively class. The Edge of Objectivity is pointed, opinionated, and selective. Even at six hundred pages, the book is, as the title suggests, an essay. Gillispie is unafraid to rate Mendel higher than Darwin, Maxwell above Faraday. Full of wry turns of phrase, the book effectively captures people and places. And throughout the book, Gillispie pushes an argument. He views science as the progressive development of more objective, detached, mathematical ways of viewing the world, and he orchestrates his characters and ideas around this theme.
In the forty-five years since the publication of The Edge of Objectivity, historians of science have established a full-fledged discipline. They have focused increasingly on the social context of science rather than its internal dynamics, and they have frequently viewed science more as a threatening instance of power than as an accumulation of knowledge. Nevertheless, Gillispie's book remains a sophisticated, fast-moving, idiosyncratic account of the development of scientific ideas over four hundred years, by one of the founding intellects in the history of science.
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Einsteinby Ronald W. ClarkISBN 0810908751 (0-8109-0875-1)
Hardcover, H.N. Abrams
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From the Closed World to the Infinite Universeby Alexandre KoyreISBN 0801803470 (0-8018-0347-0)
Softcover, Johns Hopkins Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe'Book summary:During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a radical change occurred in the patterns and the framework of European thought. In the wake of discoveries through the telescope and Copernican theory, the notion of an ordered cosmos of "fixed stars" gave way to that of a universe infinite in both time and spacewith significant and far-reaching consequences for human thought. Alexandre Koyré interprets this revolution in terms of the change that occurred in our conception of the universe and our place in it and shows the primacy of this change in the development of the modern world.
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God's Equation: Einstein, Relativity, and the Expanding Universeby Amir D. AczelISBN 0385334850 (0-385-33485-0)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Ideaby Arthur Oncken LovejoyISBN 0674361539 (0-674-36153-9)
Softcover, Harvard Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea'Book summary:From later antiquity down to the close of the eighteenth century, most philosophers and men of science and, indeed, most educated men, accepted without question a traditional view of the plan and structure of the world.
In this volume, which embodies the William James lectures for 1933, Arthur O. Lovejoy points out the three principlesplenitude, continuity, and graduationwhich were combined in this conception; analyzes their origins in the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, and the Neoplatonists; traces the most important of their diverse samifications in subsequent religious thought, in metaphysics, in ethics and aesthetics, and in astronomical and biological theories; and copiously illustrates the influence of the conception as a whole, and of the ideas out of which it was compounded, upon the imagination and feelings as expressed in literature.
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Hamlet's Mill: An Essay on Myth and the Frame of Time Ythby Giorgio De Santillana, Hertha Von DechendISBN 0879232153 (0-87923-215-3)
Softcover, David R Godine Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Hamlet's Mill: An Essay on Myth and the Frame of Time Yth'Book summary:Ever since the Greeks coined the language we commonly use for scientific description, mythology and science have developed separately. But what came before the Greeks? What if we could prove that all myths have one common origin in a celestial cosmology? What if the gods, the places they lived, and what they did are but ciphers for celestial activity, a language for the perpetuation of complex astronomical data? Drawing on scientific data, historical and literary sources, the authors argue that our myths are the remains of a preliterate astronomy, an exacting science whose power and accuracy were suppressed and then forgotten by an emergent Greco-Roman world view. This fascinating book throws into doubt the self-congratulatory assumptions of Western science about the unfolding development and transmission of knowledge. This is a truly seminal and original thesis, a book that should be read by anyone interested in science, myth, and the interactions between the two. [via]
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The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox: Mending the Gap Between Science and the Humanitiesby Stephen Jay GhouldISBN 1400051533 (1-4000-5153-3)
Softcover, Three Rivers Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox: Mending the Gap Between Science and the Humanities'Book summary:Though this final book is not the most accessible of Stephen Jay Gould's meditations on science and culture, it is a complex and revealing look at one of the late paleontologist's great passions: the unity of human endeavor. The titular hedgehog and fox refer to the classic dichotomy of persistence opposed to agility of thought, which Gould uses as a backbone in comparing, contrasting, and balancing science and the humanities. Unlike many scientists, he does not consider humanities (nor religion) to be inferior to his discipline. Drawing liberally from Renaissance and Scientific Revolution sources, Gould shows that the perceived differences in the two cultures are mostly false. Readers of E.O. Wilson's Consilience will find many similarities here, though Gould emphatically rejects Wilson's conclusion that reductionism is an appropriate way to unite the two cultures and offers examples of when such an approach might fail.
If we discover that a majority of human cultures have favored infanticide under certain conditions, and that such a practice arose for good Darwinian reasons, shall we then claim that we have resolved the question of the rightness of such a practice with a "yea"?
This volume is presented by its editor almost unchanged from the manuscript Gould had finished shortly before his death. The result is a book with such unedited detail that its dense blend of history and philosophy is at times overwhelmingly difficult. Nevertheless, Gould's deeply held conviction that human understanding comes from all our cultural efforts shines through. --Therese Littleton [via]
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- The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox : Mending the Gap Between Science and the Humanities: ISBN 0609601407 (0-609-60140-7)
Hardcover, Crown Publishing Group - The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox: Mending the Gap Between Science and the Humanities: ISBN 1400051533 (1-4000-5153-3)
Softcover, Three Rivers Pr
- The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox : Mending the Gap Between Science and the Humanities: ISBN 0609601407 (0-609-60140-7)
A History of Mathematicsby Uta C. Merzbach, Carl B. BoyerISBN 0471543977 (0-471-54397-7)
Softcover, John Wiley & Sons Inc
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A History of the Sciencesby Stephen F. MasonISBN 0020934009 (0-02-093400-9)
Softcover, Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, John
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Humboldt's Cosmos: Alexander Von Humboldt and the Latin American Journey That Changed the Way We See the Worldby Brendan CahillISBN 1592400523 (1-59240-052-3)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
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Humboldt's Cosmos: Alexander Von Humboldt And the Latin American Journey That Changed The Way We See The Worldby Gerard HelferichISBN 1592401066 (1-59240-106-6)
Softcover, Gotham Books
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Ideas and Opinionsby Albert Einstein, Alan LightmanISBN 0679601058 (0-679-60105-8)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ideas and Opinions'Book summary:A new edition of the most definitive collection of Albert Einstein's popular writings, gathered under the supervision of Einstein himself. The selections range from his earliest days as a theoretical physicist to his death in 1955; from such subjects as relativity, nuclear war or peace, and religion and science, to human rights, economics, and government. [via]
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In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredityby Daniel J. KevlesISBN 0674445570 (0-674-44557-0)
Softcover, Harvard Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity'Book summary:In the 19th century, when the idea of eugenics (selective breeding to generate superior members of a species) was invited off the farm and into the parlor, it was a far-fetched notion with little possibility of success driven by clearly racist motivations. But at the end of the 20th century, biotechnological techniques and other agendas are making forms of human eugenics plausible. Rich in anecdote, narrative, and fact. An important book. [via]
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Lavoisier in the Year One: The Birth of a New Science in an Age of Revolutionby Madison Smartt BellISBN 0393328546 (0-393-32854-6)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lavoisier in the Year One: The Birth of a New Science in an Age of Revolution'Book summary:Fresh . . . solid . . . full of suspense and intrigue. Publishers Weekly
Antoine Lavoisier reinvented chemistry, overthrowing the long-established principles of alchemy and inventing an entirely new terminology, one still in use by chemists. Madison Smartt Bells enthralling narrative reads like a race to the finish line, as the very circumstances that enabled Lavoisier to secure his reputation as the father of modern chemistrya considerable fortune and social connections with the likes of Benjamin Franklinalso caused his glory to be cut short by the French Revolution. [via]More editions of Lavoisier in the Year One: The Birth of a New Science in an Age of Revolution:
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Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science-- From the Babylonians to the Mayaby Dick TeresiISBN 074324379X (0-7432-4379-X)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science-- From the Babylonians to the Maya'Book summary:Did Nicolas Copernicus steal his notion that the earth orbited the sun from an Islamic astronomer who lived three centuries earlier? "The jury is still out," writes Dick Teresi, whose intriguing survey of the non-Western roots of modern science offers several worthy arguments that Copernicus in fact ripped off Nasir al-Din al-Tusi. Common belief is that Westerners have been the mainspring of most scientific and technical achievement, but in Lost Discoveries Teresi shows that other cultures had arrived at much of the same knowledge at earlier dates. The Babylonians were using the Pythagorean theorem at least 15 centuries before Pythagoras drew his first triangle, and in A.D. 200 a Chinese mathematician calculated an incredibly accurate value for pi. The Mayans and other Mesoamericans were outstanding sky watchers and stargazers. The greatest advances occurred in math and astronomy, though Teresi also devotes chapters to physics, geology, chemistry, technology, and even cosmology. Sometimes he is a bit overeager to ascribe great thoughts to long-dead people (he casually suggests that "many ancient cultures had inklings of quantum theory"), but on the whole his book is a reliable and fascinating guide to the unexplored field of multicultural science. --John J. Miller [via]
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Madame Curieby Eve CurieISBN 078592194X (0-7859-2194-X)
Softcover, French & European Pubns
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Madame Curie'Book summary:Marie Sklodowska Curie (18671934) was the first woman scientist to win worldwide fame, and indeed, one of the great scientists of this century. Winner of two Nobel Prizes (for physics in 1903 and for chemistry in 1911), she performed pioneering studies with radium and contributed profoundly to the understanding of radioactivity. The history of her story-book marriage to Pierre Curie, of their refusal to patent their processes or otherwise profit from the commercial exploitation of radium, and her tragically ironic death are legendary and well known but are here revealed from an inside perspective. But, as this book reveals, it was also true. An astonishing mind and a remarkable life are here portrayed by Marie Curies daughter in a classic and moving account.[via] 
Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freudby Thomas LaqueurISBN 0674543491 (0-674-54349-1)
Hardcover, Harvard University Press
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Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freudby Thomas Walter LaqueurISBN 0674543556 (0-674-54355-6)
Softcover, Harvard Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud'Book summary:This is a book about the making and unmaking of sex over the centuries. It tells the astonishing story of sex in the West from the ancients to the moderns in a precise account of developments in reproductive anatomy and physiology. We cannot fail to recognize the players in Thomas Laqueur's story--the human sexual organs and pleasures, food, blood, semen, egg, sperm--but we will be amazed at the plots into which they have been woven by scientists, political activists, literary figures, and theorists of every stripe.
Laqueur begins with the question of why, in the late eighteenth century, woman's orgasm came to be regarded as irrelevant to conception, and he then proceeds to retrace the dramatic changes in Western views of sexual characteristics over two millennia. Along the way, two "masterplots" emerge. In the one-sex story, woman is an imperfect version of man, and her anatomy and physiology are construed accordingly: the vagina is seen as an interior penis, the womb as a scrotum, the ovaries as testicles. The body is thus a representation, not the foundation, of social gender. The second plot tends to dominate post-Enlightenment thinking while the one-sex model is firmly rooted in classical learning. The two-sex story says that the body determines gender differences, that woman is the opposite of man with incommensurably different organs, functions, and feelings. The two plots overlap; neither ever holds a monopoly. Science may establish many new facts, but even so, Laqueur argues, science was only providing a new way of speaking, a rhetoric and not a key to female liberation or to social progress. Making Sex ends with Freud, who denied the neurological evidence to insist that, as a girl becomes a woman, the locus of her sexual pleasure shifts from the clitoris to the vagina; she becomes what culture demands despite, not because of, the body. Turning Freud's famous dictum around, Laqueur posits that destiny is anatomy. Sex, in other words, is an artifice.
This is a powerful story, written with verve and a keen sense of telling detail (be it technically rigorous or scabrously fanciful). Making Sex will stimulate thought, whether argument or surprised agreement, in a wide range of readers.
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Measuring the Universe: Our Historic Quest to Chart the Horizons of Space and Timeby Kitty FergusonISBN 0802775926 (0-8027-7592-6)
Softcover, Walker & Company
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Measuring the Universe: Our Historic Quest to Chart the Horizons of Space and Time'Book summary:If you want to measure how big a stick is, you can use a ruler. Want to know how tall a windmill is? Don't waste time climbing to the top with a long measuring tape. Instead, use the old shadow trick--measure the length of a yardstick's shadow, then measure the windmill's shadow and use ratios to figure out the windmill's height. Even though the windmill is big and intimidating, you can find out its size while remaining safely on the ground. This is the first example in science author Kitty Ferguson's fine book Measuring the Universe, and it sets the reader's brain firmly on the right track for understanding.
The topic here is measurement of faraway, distant, difficult things. Starting with Eratosthenes, who found a way of measuring the earth's circumference, and continuing through to modern astrophysicists' quest to measure the universe itself, Ferguson takes us on a full tour of the seemingly immeasurable. Readers are treated to enthusiastic chapters covering all the basic steps astronomers (dating back to Aristarchus of Samos) have taken to understand the arrangement of astronomical objects. How big are stars? Is that black hole moving toward us or away from us? Where is the edge of everything? And how big will the universe get before it stops expanding? You'll meet the men and women who have sought answers to these seemingly impossible questions in this accessible history. Ferguson brilliantly illuminates their personal quests and demonstrates the usefulness of each discovery in driving the next attempt to measure the universe. --Therese Littleton [via]
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Mercator: The Man Who Mapped the Planetby Nicholas CraneISBN 080506625X (0-8050-6625-X)
Softcover, Owl Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mercator: The Man Who Mapped the Planet'Book summary:An enthralling biography of the man who created the first real map of the world and changed civilization[via]
Born at the dawn of the age of discovery, Gerhard Mercator lived in an era of formidable intellectual and scientific advances. At the center of these developments were the cartographers who painstakingly pieced together the evidence to create ever more accurate pictures of the planet. Mercator was the greatest of all of them-a poor farm boy who attended one of Europe's top universities, was persecuted and imprisoned by the Inquisition, but survived to coin the term "atlas" and to produce the so-called projection for which he is known. Devoutly religious, yet gripped by Aristotelian science, Mercator struggled to reconcile the two, a conflict mirrored by the growing clash in Europe between humanism and the Church.
Mercator solved the dimensional riddle that had vexed cosmographers for so long: How could the three-dimensional globe be converted into a two-dimensional map while retaining true compass bearings? The projection revolutionized navigation and has become the most common worldview.
Nicholas Crane-a fellow geographer-has combined a keen eye for historical detail with a gift for vivid storytelling to produce a masterful biography of the man who mapped the planet.More editions of Mercator: The Man Who Mapped the Planet:
The Monk in the Garden: The Lost and Found Genius of Gregor Mendel, the Father of Geneticsby Robin Marantz HenigISBN 0618127410 (0-618-12741-0)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
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New Organon and Related Writingsby Francis BaconISBN 0023033800 (0-02-303380-0)
Softcover, Bobbs-Merrill Co
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On the Shoulders of Giants: New Approaches to Numeracyby Lynn Arthur SteenISBN 0309042348 (0-309-04234-8)
Hardcover, Natl Academy Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'On the Shoulders of Giants: New Approaches to Numeracy'Book summary:What mathematics should be learned by today's young people, as well as tomorrow's workforce? "On the Shoulders of Giants" is a vision of richness of mathematics expressed in essays on change, dimension, quantity, shape, and uncertainty, each of which illustrate fundamental strands for school mathematics. These essays expand on the idea of mathematics as the language and science of patterns, allowing us to realize the importance of providing hands-on experience and the development of a curriculum that will enable students to apply their knowledge to diverse numerical problems. [via]
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On the Shoulders of Giants: A Shandean Postscript The Post-Italianate Editionby Robert K. MertonISBN 0226520862 (0-226-52086-2)
Softcover, Univ of Chicago Pr
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Ontogeny and Phylogenyby Stephen Jay GouldISBN 0674639413 (0-674-63941-3)
Softcover, Harvard Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ontogeny and Phylogeny'Book summary:Contents:
* Recapitulation
* The Analogistic tradition from Anaximander to Bonnet
* Transcendental origins, 1793-1860
* Evolutionary triumph, 1859-1900
* Pervasive influence
* Decline, fall, and generalization
* Heterochrony and paedomorphosis
* Heterochrony and the parallel of ontogeny and phylogeny
* The Ecological and evolutionary significance of heterochrony
* Progenesis and neoteny
* Retardation and neoteny in human evolution
* Epilogue [via] 
Opticksby Isaac NewtonISBN 1591020956 (1-59102-095-6)
Softcover, Prometheus Books
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Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciencesby Michel FoucaultISBN 0679753354 (0-679-75335-4)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences'Book summary:No description available [via]
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Parallax : The Race to Measure the Cosmosby Alan W. HirshfeldISBN 0805071334 (0-8050-7133-4)
Softcover, Holt & Company, Henry
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Physical Science in the Middle Agesby Edward GrantISBN 0521292948 (0-521-29294-8)
Softcover, Cambridge Univ Pr
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The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in Modern Americaby Daniel J. KevlesISBN 0394466314 (0-394-46631-4)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in Modern America'Book summary:This magnificent account of the coming of age of physics in America has been heralded as the best introduction to the history of science in the United States. Unsurpassed in its breadth and literary style, Kevles's account portrays the brilliant scientists who became a powerful force in bringing the world into a revolutionary new era.
The book ranges widely as it links these exciting developments to the social, cultural, and political changes that occurred from the post-Civil War years to the present. Throughout, Kevles keeps his eye on the central question of how an avowedly elitist enterprise grew and prospered in a democratic culture.
In this new edition, the author has brought the story up to date by providing an extensive, authoritative, and colorful account of the Superconducting Super Collider, from its origins in the international competition and intellectual needs of high-energy particle physics, through its establishment as a multibillion-dollar project, to its termination, in 1993, as a result of angry opposition within the American physics community and the Congress.
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The Platypus and the Mermaid: And Other Figments of the Classifying Imaginationby Harriet RitvoISBN 0674673581 (0-674-67358-1)
Softcover, Harvard Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Platypus and the Mermaid: And Other Figments of the Classifying Imagination'Book summary:"Cats is 'dogs,' and rabbits is 'dogs,' and so's parrots; but this `ere 'tortis' is a insect," a porter explains to an astonished traveler in a nineteenth-century Punch cartoon. Railways were not the only British institution to schematize the world. This enormously entertaining book captures the fervor of the Victorian age for classifying and categorizing every new specimen, plant or animal, that British explorers and soldiers and sailors brought home. As she depicts a whole complex of competing groups deploying rival schemes and nomenclatures, Harriet Ritvo shows us a society drawing and redrawing its own boundaries and ultimately identifying itself. The experts (whether calling themselves naturalists, zoologists, or comparative anatomists) agreed on their superior authority if nothing else, but the laymen had their say--and Ritvo shows us a world in which butchers and artists, farmers and showmen vied to impose order on the wild profusion of nature. Sometimes assumptions or preoccupations overlapped; sometimes open disagreement or hostility emerged, exposing fissures in the social fabric or contested cultural territory. Of the greatest interest were creatures that confounded or crossed established categories; in the discussions provoked by these mishaps, monstrosities, and hybrids we can see ideas about human society--about the sexual proclivities of women, for instance, or the imagined hierarchy of nations and races. A thoroughly absorbing account of taxonomy--as zoological classification and as anthropological study--The Platypus and the Mermaid offers a new perspective on the constantly shifting, ever suggestive interactions of scientific lore, cultural ideas, and the popular imagination. [via]
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Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolutionby David C. Lindberg, Robert S. WestmanISBN 0521348048 (0-521-34804-8)
Softcover, Cambridge Univ Pr
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Science and the Modern Worldby Alfred North WhiteheadISBN 0029351901 (0-02-935190-1)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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Science of Discworldby Terry PratchettISBN 0091874777 (0-09-187477-7)
Softcover, Trafalgar Square
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Scientific Renaissance 1450-1630by Marie Boas HallISBN 0006319254 (0-00-631925-4)
Hardcover, Fontana
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The Seashell on the Mountaintop: A Story of Science, Sainthood, and the Humble Genius Who Discovered a New History of the Earthby Alan CutlerISBN 0525947086 (0-525-94708-6)
Hardcover, Penguin USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Seashell on the Mountaintop: A Story of Science, Sainthood, and the Humble Genius Who Discovered a New History of the Earth'Book summary:In the bestselling tradition of The Map that Changed the World and Longitude comes the tale of a seventeenth-century scientist-turned-priest who forever changed our understanding of the Earth and created a new field of science.
It was an ancient puzzle that stymied history's greatest minds: How did the fossils of seashells find their way far inland, sometimes high up into the mountains? Fossils only made sense in a world old enough to form them, and in the seventeenth century, few people could imagine such a thing. Texts no less authoritative than the Old Testament laid out very clearly the timescale of Earth's past; in fact one Anglican archbishop went so far as to calculate the exact date of Creation...October 23, 4004, B.C.
A revolution was in the making, however, and it was started by the brilliant and enigmatic Nicholas Steno, the man whom Stephen Jay Gould called "the founder of geology." Steno explored beyond the pages of the Bible, looking directly at the clues left in the layers of the Earth. With his groundbreaking answer to the fossil question, Steno would not only confound the religious and scientific thinking of his own time, he would set the stage for the modern science that came after him. He would open the door to the concept of "deep time," which imagined a world with a history of millions or billions of years. And at the very moment his expansive new ideas began to unravel the Bible's authoritative claim as to the age of the Earth, Steno would enter the priesthood and rise to become a bishop, ultimately becoming venerated as a saint and beatified by the Catholic Church in 1988.
Combining a thrilling scientific investigation with world-altering history and the portrait of an extraordinary genius, The Seashell on the Mountaintop gives us new insight into the very old planet on which we live, revealing how we learned to read the story told to us by the Earth itself, written in rock and stone. [via]More editions of The Seashell on the Mountaintop: A Story of Science, Sainthood, and the Humble Genius Who Discovered a New History of the Earth:
Servants of Nature: A History of Scientific Institutions, Enterprises and Sensibilitiesby Lewis Pyenson, Susan Sheets-PyensonISBN 0393317366 (0-393-31736-6)
Softcover, Norton & Company, Incorporated, W. W.
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- Servants of Nature: A History of Scientific Institutions, Enterprises, and Sensibilities: ISBN 0393046141 (0-393-04614-1)
Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc - Servants of Nature: A History of Scientific Institutions, Enterprises and Sensibilities: ISBN 0393317366 (0-393-31736-6)
Softcover, Norton & Company, Incorporated, W. W.
- Servants of Nature: A History of Scientific Institutions, Enterprises, and Sensibilities: ISBN 0393046141 (0-393-04614-1)
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Silent Springby Rachel Carson, Wilson, Edward O. (AFT), Linda LearISBN 0618249060 (0-618-24906-0)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Silent Spring'Book summary:Silent Spring, released in 1962, offered the first shattering look at widespread ecological degradation and touched off an environmental awareness that still exists. Rachel Carson's book focused on the poisons from insecticides, weed killers, and other common products as well as the use of sprays in agriculture, a practice that led to dangerous chemicals to the food source. Carson argued that those chemicals were more dangerous than radiation and that for the first time in history, humans were exposed to chemicals that stayed in their systems from birth to death. Presented with thorough documentation, the book opened more than a few eyes about the dangers of the modern world and stands today as a landmark work. [via]
Soul Made Flesh: The Discovery of the Brain--And How It Changed the Worldby Carl ZimmerISBN 0434010464 (0-434-01046-4)
Hardcover, Heinemann
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The Story of Physicsby Lloyd Motz, Hane Weaver JeffersonISBN 0380717255 (0-380-71725-5)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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The System Of The Worldby Neal StephensonISBN 0060750863 (0-06-075086-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The System Of The World'Book summary:'Tis done.
The world is a most confused and unsteady place -- especially London, center of finance, innovation, and conspiracy -- in the year 1714, when Daniel Waterhouse makes his less-than-triumphant return to England's shores. Aging Puritan and Natural Philosopher, confidant of the high and mighty and contemporary of the most brilliant minds of the age, he has braved the merciless sea and an assault by the infamous pirate Blackbeard to help mend the rift between two adversarial geniuses at a princess's behest. But while much has changed outwardly, the duplicity and danger that once drove Daniel to the American Colonies is still coin of the British realm.
No sooner has Daniel set foot on his homeland when he is embroiled in a dark conflict that has been raging in the shadows for decades. It is a secret war between the brilliant, enigmatic Master of the Mint and closet alchemist Isaac Newton and his archnemesis, the insidious counterfeiter Jack the Coiner, a.k.a. Jack Shaftoe, King of the Vagabonds. Hostilities are suddenly moving to a new and more volatile level, as Half-Cocked Jack plots a daring assault on the Tower itself, aiming for nothing less than the total corruption of Britain's newborn monetary system.
Unbeknownst to all, it is love that set the Coiner on his traitorous course; the desperate need to protect the woman of his heart -- the remarkable Eliza, Duchess of Arcachon-Qwghlm -- from those who would destroy her should he fail. Meanwhile, Daniel Waterhouse and his Clubb of unlikely cronies comb city and country for clues to the identity of the blackguard who is attempting to blow up Natural Philosophers with Infernal Devices -- as political factions jockey for position while awaiting the impending death of the ailing queen; as the "holy grail" of alchemy, the key to life eternal, tantalizes and continues to elude Isaac Newton, yet is closer than he ever imagined; as the greatest technological innovation in history slowly takes shape in Waterhouse's manufactory.
Everything that was will be changed forever ... The System of the World is the concluding volume in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, begun with Quicksilver and continued in The Confusion. [via]
Terrible Lizard: The First Dinosaur Hunters and the Birth of a New Scienceby Deborah CadburyISBN 0805067728 (0-8050-6772-8)
Hardcover, Holt & Company, Henry
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Time's Arrow/Time's Cycle: Myth and Metaphor in the Discovery of Geological Timeby Stephen Jay GouldISBN 0674891996 (0-674-89199-6)
Softcover, Harvard Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Time's Arrow/Time's Cycle: Myth and Metaphor in the Discovery of Geological Time'Book summary:Rarely has a scholar attained such popular acclaim merely by doing what he does best and enjoys most. But such is Stephen Jay Gould's command of paleontology and evolutionary theory, and his gift for brilliant explication, that he has brought dust and dead bones to life, and developed an immense following for the seeming arcana of this field.
In Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle his subject is nothing less than geology's signal contribution to human thought--the discovery of "deep time," the vastness of earth's history, a history so ancient that we can comprehend it only as metaphor. He follows a single thread through three documents that mark the transition in our thinking from thousands to billions of years: Thomas Burnet's four-volume Sacred Theory of the Earth (1680-1690), James Hutton's Theory of the Earth (1795), and Charles Lyell's three-volume Principles of Geology (1830-1833).
Gould's major theme is the role of metaphor in the formulation and testing of scientific theories--in this case the insight provided by the oldest traditional dichotomy of Judeo-Christian thought: the directionality of time's arrow or the immanence of time's cycle. Gould follows these metaphors through these three great documents and shows how their influence, more than the empirical observation of rocks in the field, provoked the supposed discovery of deep time by Hutton and Lyell. Gould breaks through the traditional "cardboard" history of geological textbooks (the progressive march to truth inspired by more and better observations) by showing that Burnet, the villain of conventional accounts, was a rationalist (not a theologically driven miracle-monger) whose rich reconstruction of earth history emphasized the need for both time's arrow (narrative history) and time's cycle (immanent laws), while Hutton and Lyell, our traditional heroes, denied the richness of history by their exclusive focus upon time's Arrow.
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Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of Historyby Stephen Jay GouldISBN 039330700X (0-393-30700-X)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History'Book summary:The Burgess Shale of British Columbia "is the most precious and important of all fossil localities," writes Stephen Jay Gould. These 600-million-year-old rocks preserve the soft parts of a collection of animals unlike any other. Just how unlike is the subject of Gould's book.
Gould describes how the Burgess Shale fauna was discovered, reassembled, and analyzed in detail so clear that the reader actually gets some feeling for what paleobiologists do, in the field and in the lab. The many line drawings are unusually beautiful, and now can be compared to a wonderful collection of photographs in Fossils of the Burgess Shale by Derek Briggs, one of Gould's students.
Burgess Shale animals have been called a "paleontological Rorschach test," and not every geologist by any means agrees with Gould's thesis that they represent a "road not taken" in the history of life. Simon Conway Morris, one of the subjects of Wonderful Life, has expressed his disagreement in Crucible of Creation. Wonderful Life was published in 1989, and there has been an explosion of scientific interest in the pre-Cambrian and Cambrian periods, with radical new ideas fighting for dominance. But even though many scientists disagree with Gould about the radical oddity of the Burgess Shale animals, his argument that the history of life is profoundly contingent--as in the movie It's a Wonderful Life, from which this book takes its title--has become more accepted, in theories such as Ward and Brownlee's Rare Earth hypothesis. And Gould's loving, detailed exposition of the labor it took to understand the Burgess Shale remains one of the best explanations of scientific work around. --Mary Ellen Curtin [via]
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Latin
Opticks: Or, A Treatise Of The Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions And Colours Of Light.by Nicholas Humez, Isaac NewtonISBN 1891788043 (1-891788-04-3)
Hardcover, Octavo
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Spanish
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Cazadores De Microbios/Germ Killersby Paul De KruifISBN 968676917X (968-6769-17-X)
Hardcover, Giron Spanish Books Distributors
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