715 research outputs found

    Studying the Echo in the Early Modern Period: Between the Academy and the Natural World

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    The Origins of Mathematical Societies and Journals

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    We investigate the origins of mathematical societies and journals. We argue that the origins of today’s professional societies and journals have their roots in the informal gatherings of mathematicians in 17th century Italy, France, and England. The small gatherings in these nations began as academies and after gaining government recognition and support, they became the ancestors of the professional societies that exist today. We provide a brief background on the influences of the Renaissance and Reformation before discussing the formation of mathematical academies in each country

    Verstärker. Hören und Herrschen bei Francis Bacon und Athanasius Kircher

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    Experiment and speculation in seventeenth-century Italy : the case of Geminiano Montanari

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    This paper reconstructs the natural philosophical method of Geminiano Montanari, one of the most prominent Italian natural philosophers of the late seventeenth century. Montanari's views are used as a case study to assess recent claims concerning early modern experimental philosophy. Having presented the distinctive tenets of seventeenth-century experimental philosophers, I argue that Montanari adheres to them explicitly, thoroughly, and consistently. The study of Montanari's views supports three claims. First, experimental philosophy was not an exclusively British phenomenon. Second, in spite of some portrayals of experimental philosophy as an ‘atheoretical’ or ‘purely descriptive’ enterprise, experimental philosophers could consistently endorse a variety of natural philosophical explanations and postulate theoretical entities. Third, experimental philosophy and mechanical philosophy were not, as such, antagonistic. They could be consistently combined in a single philosophical enterprise

    The Capture of Spring: Hooke’s “Vibrative Pulse Communicated”

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    In 1678, Robert Hooke published a treatise on his metaphysics of vibration. Lectures de Potentia Restitutiva or Of Spring contains not only experimental and geometrical demonstrations of the spring law (which mutated into Hooke’s law after his time), but also a principle at the heart of his dynamic matter theory – Congruity and Incongruity. Namely, that harmonious and discordant forces unify, shape and separate vibrating matter. This thesis reconstructs Hooke’s production of congruity and incongruity, and the spring law, analysing the inversions, reversals and paradoxes moulding his knowledge-making practices. I argue that artificial instruments and apparatuses capable of magnifying and measuring never-before-seen minute bodies and motions also made the creation of a novel geometry necessary. I attempt to show how Hooke addressed these challenges by reassessing and reconfiguring the role of traditional Euclidean geometry, and reformulating practical-geometrical definitions to create a geometry that could demonstrate the spring law. Specifically, I focus on Hooke’s studies of vibrating bodies and vibrations, and his practical geometry. By investigating Hooke’s studies within the context of his matter theory, I show that, in an epistemological inversion, Hooke used optical instruments to shift frames of reference from the microscopic to the celestial and vice versa for his knowledge production. Further, Hooke’s work is a cohesive whole centred on his studies of the similitudes between vibrating phenomena. Finally, his knowledge-making practices are a conflation of his predominant careers as an experimentalist and geometer. By constructing natural laws from physical reality, thereby implying that nature, artificial instruments, and laws such as the spring law are related, Hooke legitimised the application of instruments and mathematics to the study of nature. This process was far from straightforward or self-evident

    Geography and the Paris Academy of Sciences: politics and patronage in early 18th-century France

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    This essay considers the politics and patronage of geography in early-modern France. It examines how the Paris Academy of Sciences, widely acknowledged as the 18th century’s pre-eminent scientific society, came to recognise geography as an independent science in 1730, a century before the establishment of the first geographical societies. Although the Academy was centrally concerned with cartography from its inception in 1666, it initially afforded no official status to geography, which was viewed either as a specialised form of historical inquiry or as a minor component within the hegemonic science of astronomy. The rise of Newtonian mathematics and the associated controversy about the shape of the earth challenged the Academy’s epistemological foundations and prompted a debate about the educational and political significance of geography as a scientific practice. The death in 1726 of Guillaume Delisle, a prominent Academy astronomer-cartographer and a popular geography tutor to the young Louis XV, led to a spirited campaign to elect Philippe Buache, Delisle’s prot�eg�e, to a new Academy position as a geographer rather than an astronomer. The campaign emphasised the social and political utility of geography, though the Academy’s decision to recognise this new and distinctively modern science was ultimately facilitated by traditional networks of patronage within the French Royal Court
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