Overview

The rapidity with which knowledge changes makes much of past science obsolete, and often just wrong, from the present's point of view. We no longer think, for example, that heat is a material substance transferred from hot to cold bodies. But is wrong science always or even usually bad science? The essays in this volume argue by example that much of the past's rejected science, wrong in retrospect though it may be - and sometimes markedly so - was nevertheless sound and exemplary of enduring standards that transcend the particularities of culture and locale.

Full Product Details

Author:   Jed Z. Buchwald ,  A. Franklin
Publisher:   Springer-Verlag New York Inc.
Imprint:   Springer-Verlag New York Inc.
Edition:   2005 ed.
Volume:   11
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 1.40cm , Length: 23.20cm
Weight:   1.140kg
ISBN:  

9781402030475

ISBN 10:   1402030479
Pages:   230
Publication Date:   27 April 2005
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Beyond Disunity and Historicism; J. Buchwald, A. Franklin. 2. 'In order that we should not ourselves appear to be adjusting our estimates... to make them fit some predetermined amount'; A. Jones. 3. Ptolemy's Theories of the Latitude of the Planets in the Almagest, Handy Tables, and Planetary Hypothese; N. Swerdlow. 4. Alchemy and the Changing Significance of Analysis; W.R. Newman, L.M. Principe. 5. Descartes and the Heart Beat; M. Grene. 6. Newton's Investigation of Chromatic Dispersion and Achromatic Prisms and Lenses; A. Shapiro. 7. Wrong Science in Book 2 of Newton's Principia; G. Smith. 8. Photometry in the Early 19th Century; X. Chen. 9. An Error Within a Mistake; J. Buchwald. 10. The Konopinski-Uhlenbeck Theory of Beta Decay; A. Franklin.

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