Listing of Sessions and Abstracts of Papers - History of Science ...

Heering, Peter
E-mail Address: peter.heering@uni-oldenburg.de
The Role of Visualization in Jean Paul Marat's Scientific Approach
Jean Paul Marat is among the persons in pre-Revolutionary France who attempted to establish themselves
as natural philosophers but failed. In 1779 he published a short paper on heat, light and electricity.
This paper was expanded into three large volumes which appeared between 1780 and 1782. Crucial for
Marat's failure was probably the report a committee of the Paris Academy of Science prepared for his
optical work of 1780. Although most contemporary scientists were at least very skeptical in respect to
Marat's theories some of them accepted his experiments. He developed several new instruments and did
not only describe many experiments in his monographs but also performed them in front of an audience.
In order to develop an understanding of Marat's experimental practice several of the devices he had
described were reconstructed and the experiments were redone. In my paper I am going to use the
experiences made in this approach as a basis of the analysis of Marat's experimental practice. In doing
so, I am going to present my findings in terms of the 'style of experimentation', an epistemological
category I use in expanding Ludwik Fleck's concept of 'style of thought' and 'thought collective' with
respect to experimental practice. Thus the aim of my paper is not to discuss singular experiments but to
emphasize aspects that can be considered as being characteristic for Marat's style of experimentation,
among which visualization plays a crucial role.
Hendrick, Robert
E-mail Address: hendricr@stjohns.edu
Shaping Public Perceptions of Science in Late-Nineteenth-Century France: The Role of La Nature
Science was extraordinarily popular with the educated public in late-nineteenth-century France.
Many viewed science as a panacea that could solve the demographic, economic, and military problems
facing France and restore it to its former position as Europe's greatest power. Hence, educated French
readers took an interest in science and hungered for information about science in terms they could
understand. To satisfy this demand, a new profession emerged in Paris, that of science popularization.
The popularizers used books, newspapers, and periodicals to reach the reading public. The most successful
of these efforts was the weekly science journal, La Nature. Founded in Paris in 1873 by Gaston
Tissandier, this heavily-illustrated science review specifically targeted a middle-class reading public. In
the process of communicating scientific developments to this audience, La Nature also consciously
defended that audience's ideological positions. My discussion of the first three decades of the journal's
history focuses on the level of the science being conveyed to the French elite, on the use of the science
content for ideological purposes, and on the appeal of its illustrations to an extremely visually-oriented
public. In the process, I demonstrate that La Nature shared certain characteristics that have been present
in other successful popular science periodicals.
Henninger-Voss, Mary
E-mail Address: voss@phoenix.Princeton.EDU
Looking High and Low for a New Philosophy: Mathematics and the Early Modern Print Market
Thomas Kuhn's emphasis in The Copernican Revolution on a "mathematics for mathematicians" that
assaults the common-sense perceptions of common sixteenth-century people stands in sharp distinction
to interpreters who have looked at a kind of "scientific revolution from below." New historiography on
mathematical practitioners has attempted to trace the emergence of the new mathematical philosophy of
nature from the precincts of surveyors, navigators, and commercial mathematicians. Other historians