This paper takes James David Forbes’ Encyclopaedia Britannica entry, Dissertation Sixth, as a lens to examine physics as a cognitive, practical, and social enterprise. Forbes wrote this survey of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century mathematical and physical sciences between 1852 and 1856, when British “physics” was at a pivotal point in its history, situated between a field identified by its mathematical methods – originating in France – and a discipline identified by its university laboratory institutions. Contemporary encyclopedias provided a nexus for publishers, the book trade, readers, and men of science in the formation of physics as a field. Forbes was both a witness, whose account of the progress of physics or natural philosophy can be explored at face value, and an agent, who exploited the opportunity offered by the Encyclopaedia Britannica in the mid nineteenth century to enroll the broadly educated public and scientific collective, illuminating the connection between the definition of physics and its forms of social practice. Forbes used the terms “physics” and “natural philosophy” interchangeably. He portrayed the field as progressed by the natural genius of great men who curated it within an associational culture that engendered true intellectual spirit. Although this societal mechanism was becoming ineffective, Forbes did not see university institutions as the way forward. Instead, running counter to his friend William Whewell, he advocated inclusion of the mechanical arts (engineering), and a strictly limited role for mathematics. He revealed tensions when the widely accepted discovery-based historiography conflicted with intellectual and moral worth, reflecting a nineteenth-century concern with spirit that cuts across twentieth-century questions about discipline and field.
...More
Book
Pietro Daniel Omodeo;
Volkhard Wels;
(2019)
Natural Knowledge and Aristotelianism at Early Modern Protestant Universities
(/isis/citation/CBB325233371/)
Article
Darrigol, Olivier;
Shatashvili, Samson;
(2010)
In Honor of James Maccullagh (1809--1847)
(/isis/citation/CBB001033629/)
Book
Secord, James A.;
(2014)
Visions of Science: Books And Readers at the Dawn of the Victorian Age
(/isis/citation/CBB001551308/)
Article
Thomas B. Greenslade;
(2020)
Professors of Natural Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB377443938/)
Book
Blum, Paul Richard;
(2012)
Studies on Early Modern Aristotelianism
(/isis/citation/CBB001201594/)
Article
Sybil Gertrude De Clark;
(2017)
Qualitative vs Quantitative Conceptions of Homogeneity in Nineteenth Century Dimensional Analysis
(/isis/citation/CBB667414764/)
Article
Henderson, Andrea;
(2014)
The Physics and Poetry of Analogy
(/isis/citation/CBB001550338/)
Book
Schuster, John;
(2013)
Descartes-Agonistes: Physico-Mathematics, Method and Corpuscular-Mechanism 1618--33
(/isis/citation/CBB001500367/)
Article
Schemmel, Matthias;
(2014)
Medieval Representations of Change and Their Early Modern Application
(/isis/citation/CBB001201190/)
Chapter
Assis, André K. T.;
(2010)
Newton and Inverse Problems
(/isis/citation/CBB001250579/)
Article
Wigelsworth, Jeffrey R.;
(2008)
Bipartisan Politics and Practical Knowledge: Advertising of Public Science in Two London Newspapers, 1695--1720
(/isis/citation/CBB000850476/)
Article
Jip van Besouw;
Steffen Ducheyne;
(2021)
Characterisations in Britain of Isaac Newton’s Approach to Physical Inquiry in the Principia between 1687 and 1713
(/isis/citation/CBB596401598/)
Book
Poole, William;
(2010)
John Aubrey and the Advancement of Learning
(/isis/citation/CBB001200526/)
Book
Reisch, Gregor;
Cunningham, Andrew;
Kusukawa, Sachiko;
(2010)
Natural Philosophy Epitomised: A Translation of Books 8--11 of Gregor Reisch's Philosophical Pearl (1503)
(/isis/citation/CBB001024715/)
Article
Giovanni Battimelli;
Adele La Rana;
Paolo Rossi;
(2020)
Masters and students in Italian Physics between the 19th and 20th centuries: the Felici-Bartoli-Stracciati-Corbino case
(/isis/citation/CBB545240140/)
Article
Anderson, Ronald;
(2001)
Exploring the mathematical and interpretative strategies of Maxwell's Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism
(/isis/citation/CBB000100426/)
Multimedia Object
Jim Stein;
Nahin, Paul J.;
(2020)
Paul Nahin, “Hot Molecules, Cold Electrons” (Princeton UP, 2020)
(/isis/citation/CBB088116271/)
Book
Romano Gatto;
(2010)
Libri di matematica a Napoli nel Settecento. Editoria, fortuna e diffusione delle opere
(/isis/citation/CBB036073323/)
Book
Paul J. Nahin;
(2020)
Hot Molecules, Cold Electrons: From the Mathematics of Heat to the Development of the Trans-Atlantic Telegraph Cable
(/isis/citation/CBB042236017/)
Book
Arianrhod, Robyn;
(2005)
Einstein's Heroes: Imagining the World through the Language of Mathematics
(/isis/citation/CBB000640788/)
Be the first to comment!