Article ID: CBB303872937

History as a Tool for Natural Science: How Ernst Mach Applied Historical Methods to Physics (2022)

unapi

Historical methods have long been put to use in the making of natural knowledge. In this article, I examine the use of historical methods by nineteenth-century physicists, focusing on the Austrian researcher Ernst Mach in particular. I argue that Mach applied methods characteristic of the then-dominant historical and philological disciplines to his own discipline of physics. He construed history as a tool for the physicist. On the basis of a study of his notebooks and correspondence with the chemist-turned-historian Emil    Wohlwill, I explain what he sought to achieve by means of this tool, and reconstruct the practices characterizing his historical research. These practices included the reading, ordering, and comparison of textual sources. Moreover, Mach appropriated the historical-philological method of source criticism. I show that prominent fellow physicists of Mach, including Johann Poggendorff and Hermann von Helmholtz, made use of similar historical methods, even though their aims were different. Together, the cases of these history-writing physicists illustrate how history and natural science continued to intertwine in a time of increasing disciplinary fragmentation.

...More
Citation URI
http://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB303872937/

Similar Citations

Book Blackmore, John T.; (2010)
Ernst Mach's Graz (1864--1867): Where Much Science and Philosophy Were Developed (/isis/citation/CBB001024110/)

Book Snobelen, Stephen; (2013)
The Newton Project Canada (/isis/citation/CBB001452000/)

Chapter Zanarini, Gianni; (2001)
Hermann von Helmholtz and Ernst Mach on Musical Consonance (/isis/citation/CBB000102702/)

Book John Preston; (2021)
Interpreting Mach: Critical Essays (/isis/citation/CBB070616818/)

Chapter Heidelberger, Michael; (1997)
Beziehungen zwischen Sinnesphysiologie und Philosophie im 19. Jahrhundert (/isis/citation/CBB000072987/)

Article Rowlinson, J. S.; (2009)
The Border between Physics and Chemistry (/isis/citation/CBB000954652/)

Book Claudio Forner; Valentina Gallo; Sabine Schwarze; Corrado Viola; (2017)
Le carte false. Epistolarità fittizia nel Settecento italiano (/isis/citation/CBB601170491/)

Chapter Arcangelo Rossi; (2016)
Cosimo De Giorgi and the development of natural sciences in the South of Italy (/isis/citation/CBB480886065/)

Chapter Cahan, David; (2005)
Hermann von Helmholtz und die Ausgestaltung der amerikanischen Physik im Gilded Age (/isis/citation/CBB001022592/)

Book Hiebert, Erwin N.; (2014)
The Helmholtz Legacy in Physiological Acoustics (/isis/citation/CBB001551096/)

Article D'Agostino, Salvo; (2005)
Il difficile ricupero dell'Anschaulichkeit di Goethe nell'opera di Helmholtz (/isis/citation/CBB000610526/)

Chapter Pietro Cerreta; (2017)
Mach, the Principles of Dynamics and Newton’s Bucket (/isis/citation/CBB036183229/)

Authors & Contributors
Boi, Luciano
Heidelberger, Michael
Zanarini, Gianni
Pantalony, David Alexander
D'Agostino, Salvatore
Rowlinson, John S.
Journals
Kant-Studien
Annals of Science: The History of Science and Technology
Nuncius: Annali di Storia della Scienza
Bulletin for the History of Chemistry
History of Science
HOPOS
Publishers
Pavia University Press
Sentinel Open Press
University of King's College
Springer
University of California, Los Angeles
Cambridge University Press
Concepts
Physics
Natural philosophy
Psychology
Correspondence and corresponding
Philosophy of science
Natural science
People
Mach, Ernst
Helmholtz, Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von
Fechner, Gustav Theodor
Newton, Isaac
Kant, Immanuel
Einstein, Albert
Time Periods
19th century
20th century
20th century, early
17th century
18th century
16th century
Places
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Central Europe: Germany, Austria, Switzerland
United States
Austria
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment