Electricity and Experimental Physics in Eighteenth-Century Europe Hardcover - 1992

From the publisher

At the beginning of the 18th century there was no science of physics as we recognise it today; by the early years of the nineteenth century, there was. The articles in this volume are concerned with the process by which this came about. They focus, in particular, on the rise of experimental physics and the interactions between experiment, theory and mathematics in the study of electricity and, to a lesser extent, magnetism and physical optics during this period. Along the way, they provide a significant reassessment of Isaac Newton's influence on the science of his successors. A further recurring theme is the process by which ideas were disseminated within the expanding scientific community of the day, and the manner of their reception, often in a form somewhat different from that envisaged by their first inventors, as Professor Home argues took place in the case of Franklin. The social and intellectual context of the 'scientist', indeed, is the specific subject of several essays, dealing not only with England and France, but also offering new insights into the position of science in 18th-century Russia. Au dbut du 18e s., la science physique telle que nous l'entendons de nos jours, n'existait pas; ds les premires annes du 19e s., cela n'tait plus le cas. Les articles contenus dans ce volume s'intressent au procd qui a provoqu ce changement. Ils s'attachent plus particulirement la monte de la physique exprimentale et l'interaction entre exprience, thorie et mathmatiques en ce qui concerne l'tude de l'lectricit et, dans une moindre mesure, celle du magntisme et de l'optique physique durant cette priode. Ce faisant, les tudes fournissent une r-valuation significative de l'influence d'Isaac Newton sur la science de ses successeurs. Un autre thme est celui du processus par lequel les ides taient dissmines l'poque au sein d'une communaut scientifique en pleine expans