Williams, Lambert (Author)
Galison, Peter
Harvard University
Edition Details: Advisor: Galison, Peter
Physical Details: 306 pp.
Language: English
This project addresses the messy emergence of two new sciences, nonlinear dynamics ('chaos') and complex systems science, between the 1960s and the early 2000s. This work aims to unearth what sort of call these new sciences answered, and also what was so different about them. Yet writing a history of these fields is to write a history of the inchoate, and the opening chapter is devoted to some of the historiographical challenges this poses, demonstrating the sea of noise from which some signal has to be extracted. Three main ideas are then put forward to recover some historical traction: chaos and complexity science deserve attention of account of differences in modeling (chapter two), in building (chapter three), and in writing (chapter four). With respect to modeling, it is shown that these emerging areas of work were accompanied by surprising innovations in the deployment of computers and modeling techniques. The attention to building, meanwhile, shows that certain modes of organizing knowledge production, largely inherited from the 19 th century, have partially broken down and been replaced by a category called quasi-discipline. Finally, the investigation of writing focuses on the singular role of the popular science book. Often imagined as a downstream vessel that simply reports on some pre-existing corpus, here it is argued that the popular book helped fabricate certain parts of chaos and complexity science. The closing discussion draws these threads together, and suggests some further fields that could be illuminated using the approach fashioned in this work.
...MoreDescription Cited in ProQuest Diss. & Thes. (2012). ProQuest Doc. ID 962411497.
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