TA: Kirsty Lawson office hours: Tuesday 4.30 to 6.30 p.m. at the Bookmark (Bizzell Library)

Transcription

1 HSCI 3833: The scientific revolution, Spring 2012 Instructor: associate professor Rienk H. Vermij office hours: Monday and Tuesday, p.m. (Physical Science Building, 606) phone: TA: Kirsty Lawson office hours: Tuesday 4.30 to 6.30 p.m. at the Bookmark (Bizzell Library) Class meets at Monday, Wednesday and Friday from to at Michael F. Price Hall, room Introduction The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw a series of dramatic shifts in the understanding of the natural world, including the replacement of geocentric cosmology with heliocentrism, the rise of experimental methods, the developments of new techniques for observing and describing natural objects, and the use of mathematical methods. Fifty years ago, historians of science located the birth of modern science in this period and dubbed it the Scientific Revolution. This label has stuck, but present historians of science are much more sceptical about whether modern science was born at any point of time. There is no longer a clear consensus on when and why the scientific revolution happened, who and what were involved, and even if the term makes any sense at all. These debates are not just about what happened in the past, but about how we today define science and how we understand the place of science in the modern world. General rules Everyone is expected to keep up with the reading schedule and to participate in class discussion of the readings. Exams are given both over the assigned readings and over the information the instructor gives in class. If the students have missed a class, it is their responsibility to find out what has been taught or announced. Messages will be send to your OU account. If you do not use that account normally, please arrange for s to be forwarded from that account to the one you use. It is the policy of the university to excuse the absence of students that result from religious observances and to provide without penalty for the rescheduling of examinations and additional required class work that may fall on religious holidays. Please see me in advance. Any student in this course who has a disability that may prevent him or her from fully demonstrating his or her abilities should contact me personally as soon as possible so that we can discuss accommodations necessary to ensure full participation and facilitate your educational opportunities. Evaluation There are 500 points to be earned in this class, in the following way: First, (short) essay): 50 points Three essays, 100 points each: 300 points Class participation: 50 points

2 Final exam: 100 points The final exam will be a take-home exam. Quizzes may be given and students may be asked to prepare questions. Those who do not make at least 2/3 of the quizzes (graded as sufficient), will not get the 100 points for participation. Class readings Textbook (required): Paolo Rossi, The birth of modern science (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000) The following texts are on D2L: - Peter Dear, Revolutionizing the sciences. European knowledge and its ambitions, (Princeton 2001) Sara Schechner, Comets, popular culture and the birth of modern cosmology (Princeton 1997) Owsei Temkin, The falling sickness.a history of epilepsy from the Greeks to the beginnings of modern neurology (Baltimore 1945) Albert van Helden, The birth of the modern scientific instrument, , in: J.G. Burke ed., The uses of science in the age of Newton (Cambridge 1983) Rolf Willach, The long road to the invention of the telescope, in: A. Van Helden a.o. ed., The origins of the telescope (Amsterdam 2010) Galileo Galilei, The starry messenger, in Discoveries and opinions of Galileo, translated by Stillman Drake (New York 1957) Christoph Scheiner, Letters on sunspots, in: Eileen Reeves and Albert Van Helden ed., On sunspots (Chicago 2010) Maurice A. Finocchiaro, The Galileo affair. A documentary history (Berkeley etc. 1989) and R.J. Backwell, Galileo, Bellarmine and the Bible (Notre Dame and London 1991) E.J. Dijksterhuis, The mechanization of the world picture (Oxford 1961) William Gilbert, De magnete, translated by P. Fleury Mottelay (New York 1958) 22-27, 64-71, William Harvey, An anatomical disputation concerning the movement of the heart and blood, translated by G. Whitteridge (Oxford etc. 1976) 74-77, René Descartes, The world and other writings, Stephen Gaukroger ed., (Cambridge 1998) 21-32, , Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, Conversations on the plurality of worlds, translated by H.A. Hargreaves (Berkeley etc. 1990) Gary B. Deason, Reformation theology and the mechanistic conception of nature, in: David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers ed., God and nature. Historical essays in the encounter between Christianity and science (Berkeley etc. 1986) Isaac Newton, The mathematical principles of natural philosophy, translated by Andrew Motte and Florian Cajori (Berkeley 1966) xx-xxxiii (preface by Cotes), (general scholium). - B.J.T. Dobbs, Newton s commentary on the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus: its scientific and theological significance, in: Ingrid Merkel and Allen G. Debus ed., Hermeticism in the Renaissance. Intellectual history and the occult in early modern Europe (Cranbury, NJ, 1988) Marian Fournier, The fabric of life. Microscopy in the seventeenth century (Baltimore 1996). - Eric Jorink, Reading the book of nature in the Dutch Golden Age, (Leiden 2010).

3 - Leeuwenhoek, letters, from Alle de brieven, I (Amsterdam 1939). - H.F. Cohen, The scientific revolution. A historiographical inquiry (Chicago 1994) Edgar Zilsel, The sociological roots of science, in: The social origins of modern science (Dordrecht 2000). - Andrew Cunningham and Perry Williams, Decentring the big picture: the origins of modern science and the modern origins of science, in: British journal for the history of science 26 (1993) Websites: Copernicus revolutions: Galileo project: Museo Galileo: Newton project: Reading schedule. The schedule is open to modifications. Week 1-2: Introduction Jan 16 Martin Luther King day, no class 18 Introduction 20 Dear, Revolutionizing the sciences 23 Temkin, Falling sickness 25 Schechner, Comets 27 Week 3-5: Copernicus and Galileo 30 Copernicus, On the revolutions First (short) essay due. Febr 1 Rossi, Willach, Long road 8 Galileo, Sidereus nuncius 10 Scheiner, in Reeves and Van Helden 13 Finocchiaro, Galileo affair

4 15 Blackwell, Galileo, Bellarmine, and the Bible. 17 Kepler, New astronomy Week 6: Science in the first half of the seventeenth century 20 Gilbert, On the magnet Second essay due 22 Dijksterhuis, Mechanization 24 Rossi, ; Harvey, Motion week 7-9: Descartes and Newton 27 Descartes, World, Rossi, March 2 Descartes, World, , Rossi, ; Deason, Reformation theology 7 Newton, fragments from Principia 9 Newton, New theory of light and colors, online in Newton Project. 12 Dobbs, Newton s commentary 14 Newton Project : Spring break, no class Week 10: Science in the second half of the seventeenth century 26 Fontenelle Third essay due 28 Rossi, Van Helden, Instruments. Rossi, Week 11-13: Special subjects

5 April 2 Fournier, Fabric of life 4 Leeuwenhoek, texts 6 Jorink, Book of nature 9 11 t.b.a. 13 t.b.a. 16 H.F. Cohen, The scientific revolution Fourth essay due 18 Zilsel, Sociological roots 20 Cunningham and Williams, Decentring t.b.a. May 2 t.b.a. 4 t.b.a.