American Philosophical Society – förlag

The history of science from 1945 to 2020, told from the perspective of Arnold Thackray, a pioneering expert in the fieldIn this fascinating personal account of what he calls the "American century," Arnold Thackray, noted historian of the development of science, relates his life's story, beginning in post-war Manchester, England, to his time as an undergraduate at Bristol University, followed by his years at Cambridge University, where he earned a Ph.D. in the newly created field of science history. This subject turned out to be his life's passion and, lured by the new opportunities in academia in the United States, he joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, where he founded the Department of the History and Sociology of Science. He went on to found the Chemical Heritage Foundation (later to become the Science History Institute) in Philadelphia.In this book, Thackray views his long career through the lens of the United States' rise and fall as a global power, from the testing of the first atomic bomb at Alamogordo in 1945, to the ignominious retreat of American forces in Afghanistan in 2020, coinciding with the rise of artificial intelligence—a technology whose benefits, and perils, have yet to be fully realized. An absorbing read for anyone with an interest in the technological developments of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Making Science History is at once a memoir as well as a thoughtful examination of the achievements, and limitations, of human scientific thought.

A richly illustrated account of the life and work of Jane Colden, America's first woman botanistJane Colden (1724–1760) was America's first woman botanist, yet her contributions to the field of early American botany remain little-known and her writings are mostly unpublished. Looking at Colden's original writing, the correspondence of her father, Dr. Cadwallader Colden, and eighteenth-century botanic sources, Fenella Greig Heckscher provides a full account of her life and work.Born into an educated family of Scottish heritage, Colden's interest in botany began at an early age, when she learned the Linnaean system of plant classification from her father and followed his example to study and classify the plants of New York's Hudson Valley. Colden's acute powers of observation enabled her to create detailed descriptions and illustrations of more than 300 plant species in the province of New York. By the time of her death, her Botanic Manuscript remained a work-in-progress and little appreciated beyond European botany circles.Richly illustrated with her own sketches and handwriting, this volume presents a full examination of Jane Colden's Manuscript, highlights its important contributions to the early study of America's flora, and, three hundred years after her birth, restores Colden's legacy as one of the country's great botanists.

An examination of scientific controversies in which challenging the accepted position led to great intellectual rewardsThe word "hunch" has many definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary; this book's title references this one: "A premonition or intuitive feeling that something . . . may be the case." Such premonitions are often dismissed by those in academia and the institutional scientific community. Author Claudio Vita-Finzi, on the other hand, demonstrates why these intuitions are essential in fostering originality in scientific research, whether it concerns predicting tsunamis, the possible benefits of soil erosion, or the study of the eleven-year solar cycle. Hunch offers a compelling case about the fragility of received wisdom, and the rewards of following one's intuition.Vita-Finzi showcases ten case studies in geology and astronomy where the accepted scientific position on a given topic was open to challenge. In some of these studies lives were at stake, as with the management of the Vajont dam whose overflow killed 2,000 people down valley, or the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, where expensive global monitoring failed to prevent some 200,000 deaths in Indonesia alone. Other studies are primarily scientific, such as the nature of the craters on the planet Venus, the location of major earthquakes in peninsular India, or the processes responsible for the heating of the sun's surface. Each controversy, and the matter at stake, is presented with enough detailed explanation to appeal to interested readers from both outside and inside the scientific community.

An examination of scientific controversies in which challenging the accepted position led to great intellectual rewardsThe word "hunch" has many definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary; this book's title references this one: "A premonition or intuitive feeling that something . . . may be the case." Such premonitions are often dismissed by those in academia and the institutional scientific community. Author Claudio Vita-Finzi, on the other hand, demonstrates why these intuitions are essential in fostering originality in scientific research, whether it concerns predicting tsunamis, the possible benefits of soil erosion, or the study of the eleven-year solar cycle. Hunch offers a compelling case about the fragility of received wisdom, and the rewards of following one's intuition.Vita-Finzi showcases ten case studies in geology and astronomy where the accepted scientific position on a given topic was open to challenge. In some of these studies lives were at stake, as with the management of the Vajont dam whose overflow killed 2,000 people down valley, or the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, where expensive global monitoring failed to prevent some 200,000 deaths in Indonesia alone. Other studies are primarily scientific, such as the nature of the craters on the planet Venus, the location of major earthquakes in peninsular India, or the processes responsible for the heating of the sun's surface. Each controversy, and the matter at stake, is presented with enough detailed explanation to appeal to interested readers from both outside and inside the scientific community.

An exhibition catalog exploring the emergence of the Declaration of Independence during the revolutionary crisis of 1775–1776These Truths explores the emergence of the Declaration of Independence during the revolutionary crisis of 1775–1776, and how the document was drafted, printed, shared, interpreted, and remembered through the mid-nineteenth century. Published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same title, taking place at the American Philosophical Society Museum in 2026, this exhibition catalog demonstrates how the Declaration served as an instrument of civic participation and democratic ideals and how the document became a national symbol. The book includes a fully illustrated object checklist, as well as three essays that expand on themes introduced and investigated in the exhibition, including diplomacy in Benjamin Franklin's France, the history of the various printed versions of the Declaration, and Thomas Jefferson's fair copies of the Declaration. A fitting exhibition and catalog to celebrate the United States' 250th anniversary, These Truths challenges preconceived notions of the founding story and illuminates the relevance of the document's first fifty years to American culture.