Wikipedia talk:WikiProject History of Science

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Questions, Discussion, etc.

Quick question: would articles on historians of science (like current HSS President Michael Sokal) count as a History of Science article, or articles on historians? Xuanwu 23:49, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm certainly not the final authority on this, but I would consider such articles as history of science. The way it is now, Category:Historians of science is a subcategory of Category:Historiography of science, which is a subcategory of Category:History of science. But I'm the one who created the historiography of science category, and Buridan has suggested on Category talk:History of science that my recategorization may be objectionable to some.--ragesoss 00:51, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

They'd be both! But if it came down to categorization: "historians of science" is a subcategory of "historians", I'd imagine, though in real, disciplinary terms of course such a hierarchy is somewhat misleading (as not all historians of science have strict historical training). --Fastfission 15:38, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Right. (I meant, in addition to historians as well; I forgot to mention that).--ragesoss 16:28, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Biography COTW

The biography of the week would be a very easy way increase the profile of this WikiProject; currently the biography project seems to have very little participation, despite high visibility. There aren't any nominations with more than 2 votes, so they haven't changed the COTW article for several weeks. With only a little bit of participation we could nominate and determine the next biography collaboration. I suggest Theodosius Dobzhansky, Lise Meitner or Mendeleev, or we could revitalize the Louis Pasteur nomination.--ragesoss 11:55, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

• I think that's a good idea. There are lots of very prominent scientists with really cruddy biographies at the moment. --Fastfission 02:03, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I've nominated Thomas Hunt Morgan; unlike many of the prominent scientists we could choose, there is a massive amount of good English sources readily available to improve this one. If we can get a couple of votes from project members, it ought to become the COTW almost immediately; all the other nominations are technically expired and the current collaboration has been going for a very long time.--ragesoss 06:17, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Image requests

Fastfission's mention of the need for diagrams reminded me that this has also been recently discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics. Unfortunately, the pre-existing mechanism for this, Wikipedia:Requested images, is very underused. We can either try to encourage more use of WP:RI or create our own internal image request section or subpage. I don't know which would work best. — Laura Scudder ☎ 20:01, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

• Whatever the case, it would be really helpful, in instances where people want diagrams rather than photographs, if they could provide an example of what the final product would look like. It's not very hard, in my experience, to whip up a nice looking diagram of something if one has an idea ahead of time what the final product could or should look like (which is not to say that one just traces or makes duplicates, of course -- I often change things around very considerably in terms of drawing style, but the basic factual information is the same). (One of the WP:RI examples is for an illustration of an Island of stability but gives no explanation of what such an illustration would look like, and Google Imaging the term seems not to turn up anything that would work either. If someone knew what one should look like, visually, it would be very easy to draw one!) I suppose what this comes down to in the end is a better collaboration between people with active scientific knowledge and the people drawing the diagrams. --Fastfission 02:03, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
  • To digress, somewhat... I have a textbook with an image that gives an idea of the islands of stability, but I don't think it would be too good of an image to try to illustrate; doing it right would mean having a graph with every known element and a few unknown ones, each in specific positions (corresponding to the number of neutrons and protons in the most stable isotopes). But I suppose you might be able to find a way to simplify it to the conceptual core of islands of stability. I could send you a scan of the image, if you like.--ragesoss 02:26, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
    • The downside of not operating in meatspace is that you can't just sketch what you want. I believe that Eisberg and Resnick has just such a plot. I seem to remember it's rather simple in principle (especially with color unlike Resnick), so I could make one tonight. — Laura Scudder ☎ 18:52, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Featured topic: Nuclear weapons?

I think nuclear weapons would make a good candidate for the new featured topics. What do ya'll think? Anyone up for creating a series template to link the articles and spearheading the nomination?

There are a ton of articles (92, plus 14 categories) in the nuclear weapons category, so we would need to identify the core articles (which shouldn't be too hard, starting from nuclear weapon and going to the linked main articles).--ragesoss 04:59, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what happens to a successful "featured topic" proposal. Does it get displayed at Main Page? There's nothing about featured *topics* at Help:Contents. Wikipedia:Featured_articles shows that nuclear weapon has already been featured. I agree that the article is particularly . . . encyclopedic, for lack of a better word. Alison Chaiken 05:14, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't go on the main page, but I'm not sure about other exposure. There is only one featured topic so far: Diamond.--ragesoss 05:28, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm happy to try and work on this, it is a subject I'm pretty well versed in. The only complicating factor is that there is already a {{WMD}} template which has a lot of nuclear-related articles on it as it is. But I think would actually make more sense if we removed the nuclear things from that template and made a separate nuclear template. Hmm. --Fastfission 03:50, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah; that whole extra section on nuclear weapons template could just be removed; it would still have the one link along side the chemical and biological.--ragesoss 04:01, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessary to have a template confined to the featured topic, only that there is either a clear main article or a unifying template. The whole thing is on rather shaky legs still so far as knowing exactly what featured topics will be. — Laura Scudder ☎ 18:13, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I think a new template might be a good idea though; the entire WMD template doesn't always apply to nuclear articles (i.e. nuclear weapon design or nuclear explosion), and the nuclear weapon-specific articles don't apply at all to most of the other WMD articles. I made a mockup of a new template, based on the WMD section, at {{Nuclear weapons}}. Comments, re-arrangement, new image choices, etc. are appreciated. --Fastfission 21:07, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I like it a lot. I had imagined something more inclusive, encompassing most of Nuclear_weapon#See_also. But, especially with the consistency in titles in your template (and the fact that those articles basically link to all the others in short order), I think it's much better the way you've done it. I think it's ready to go as a featured topic candidate; it should be a shoe-in.--ragesoss 06:10, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I think nuclear terrorism should not be there, though. Controversy over the Japan bombings is covered elsewhere, and the article doesn't compare to the nuclear articles.--ragesoss 06:13, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I changed "History of nuclear weapons" to "Nuclear weapons history", so all the articles would start with "nuclear". The image I think is the perfect choice; the only thing better would be an animated, hi-res version of Image:Slim-pickens riding-the-bomb.jpg.

As for ordering, I would have done it like this:

• Nuclear weapons history
• Nuclear warfare
• Nuclear explosion
• Nuclear weapon design
• Nuclear testing
• Nuclear delivery
• Nuclear proliferation
• Nuclear countries

I think it makes more sense to have countries after proliferation, and warfare as sort of an extension of history. But I have no major objection to your original ordering.--ragesoss 06:24, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I started the nomination: Wikipedia:Featured_topic_candidates/Nuclear_weapons. It should be a shoe-in. One place it should get some exposure is the new Portal:Featured content.--ragesoss 20:09, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I find the fascination of contributors to this WikiProject with nuclear weapons curious. When I think "history of science," nuclear weapons and their history do not come to mind. While that is a very worthy topic (I have vivid memories of my Cold War childhood), this isn't the forum for it. For one thing, have enough documents from the Cold War era been declassified to permit a complete account of the making and deployment of nuclear weapons at the time? The discussion above also omits a topic dear to me: the history of accidents and close calls. I think it important to reveal the extent to which our Russian and American fathers and grandfathers played with fire.

It may be the case that nuclear weapons will become a purely historical topic within the lifetimes of readers of this thread. A recent article in Discover states that the USA claims to have made no plutonium since 1990. If that is true, the American nuclear arsenal will evaporate within the lifetime of most readers. This does not preclude a nuclear exchange between,. e.g., India and Pakistan. Such an exchange would be horrible, but would not call world civilization into question.

In any event, I see the primary mission of the history of science as sorting out the details of the scientific and industrial revolutions that took place during the several centuries prior to the outbreak of WWI. Those revolutions, more than anything else, have shaped the world about us. The greatest human problem today is getting the entire human race on board of those revolutions. Solving that problem will require a careful understanding of how that revolution began in western Europe 400 years ago.202.36.179.65 18:11, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

As for why people are interested in it on here -- beats me. They are a fairly hot topic as of late because of the end of the Cold War makes it a little easier to get critical distance on them. They were heavily featured in history of physics literature of the 20th century for a wide variety of reasons before that as well. I do a lot of work in my "real world" identity on the history of nuclear weapons, which is why I contribute so heavily in this department.

As for documents -- the document problem is of course always present but not as bad as you would at first suppose, though it depends from what era one is talking about. There is a ton of documents on the early developments of the weapons from the 1940s through the 1950s. When you get to the innovations of the 1960s and 1970s, though, things tend to peter out a bit in the arena of warhead development (probably because miniaturization is still considered a major issue, unlike the basic things), but there is lots in terms of deployment and delivery systems. The history of the accidents is discussed in the history of nuclear weapons article, and a few of the others (some of the close-calls are in the nuclear warfare article I believe), and there is a very long list of military nuclear accidents as well. So these have not been totally neglected.

Of course nuclear weapons are not a "purely historical topic" but "history" is a pretty broad concept; 20th century history of science is well established as a field, even if some of it is quite recent. Some people I know work on the history of things which haven't even been achieved yet, like quantum computing! I tend to think that approach starts to really stretch the definition of "history" but I'm not one to criticize (my Early Modernist colleaques think it is absurd that one could/should do history about people who are still alive!).

I don't know what the primary mission of the "history of science" is in general (I don't think there is one), but as for the WikiProject, I think it should be to shore up all history of science coverage on Wikipedia, and we all should try and fill in what we know best, since that is an easy thing to do for most of us. For a few of us, that involved 20th century military funding of science and with that one often comes back to nuclear weapons. One can of course endlessly debate what is "more important" in the long run but I don't think that nuclear weapons can probably be plausible argued to be relevant still. ;-) --Fastfission 18:29, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I've recently joined

The history of science is a particular area of knowledge of mine, as I read lots of books. I'm not a professional, but I'm new here, and may require guidance. So hello, I'll work on chemistry articles for a while. Any history of chemistry/chemist articles I can improve on?--Young XenoNeon (converse) 19:26, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Try Chemical Revolution; it's just a stub.--ragesoss 20:43, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Hey, thanks! I like chamical revolutions. I'll get round to destubifying it soon...--[[User: XenoNeon]] (converse) 19:54, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Compare Willard Gibbs as it stood in early January 2006 with what it is now. The inept amateurish writing of the earlier version is typical of what I've found in many purely intellectual Wikipedia entries (strangely, entries on popular culture are often better written). Even though I am no Gibbs expert whatsoever, I rewrote the entry because I revere him. It was a matter of recasting the sentences, reordering the facts, sourcing (regrettably few) added biographical facts on the web, and adding links. I should hasten to add that I think that the entry's description of Gibbs's scientific accomplishments, to which I am not competent to speak, is inadequate. A lot more could be done by someone, such as yourself, having substantial knowledge in the area.

There is a fair web resource on the history of mathematics, the MacTutor maintained by the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland. The articles are not always well written, but a lot of facts are there. I wonder if there is a comparable resource for chemistry. If there isn't such a site, it would be lovely if the ACS were to set one up.202.36.179.65 17:31, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Request

There doesn't seem to be a History of Mathematics Wikiproject, so I thought I'd drop a note here. If anyone here is qualified, or has a suitable reference, I'd really like to see the Manifold#History section fleshed out a little bit. Thanks! –Joke 03:15, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Have you tried asking at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics also? They're a very large and active project, whereas we're scant on mathematicians. — Laura Scudder ☎ 03:25, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I overcame my fear of mathematicians and left a note over there. Thanks! –Joke 04:47, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Redirect

I couldn't remember exactly how this project was named (I find project names so hard to get right), so I created a little redirect at WP:WPHOS. Just a little FYI! --Fastfission 21:08, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Nobel Prize articles

I just finished an informal reveiw of all the Nobel Prize laurates in Physiology or Medicine. Many of the articles are very short stubs. I've made of list of my off-the-cuff assessments of each article on my subpage User:Sayeth/nobelprize. Please help improve these articles to make Wikipedia more complete. Sayeth 17:42, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Just went to your talk, good summary. I may add that the status of Nobel laureates in Chemistry is pretty awful too - Kendall and Perutz have negligible stubs. --Dumarest 14:12, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Historical Geology

I suggest removing "Historical Geology" from "Articles in need of expansion or creation". I do not disagree that the article on Historical Geology can use some work, but it does not really fall under the purview of the "History of Science." Historical geology is actually a large branch of geology having to do with the origin and evolution of the Earth and life on the Earth. It is history on a grand scale but I think History of Earth Sciences would cover the topic in a human historic sense. Incidentally, I am teaching an undergraduate course "Historical Geology" this semester. Jay Gregg 20:37, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree with you. I've removed it from the list. — Laura Scudder ☎ 20:43, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Great. The only reason I included it was because someone had redirected the category for history of geology into historical geology some time ago, so I left it there in case historical geology meant something else to other people than what it meant to me. Also, basically the only history of geology content is in the "historical development" section of historical geology.--ragesoss 21:23, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Arabic vs. Islamic Science

A friend of mine shared his impressions with me about the WP history of science content in general, and some of the categorization more specifically; it's very insightful and (especially since most of us are focused on modern science) worth paying attention to, so I'll pass his comments along:

I'd argue for replacing the term 
"Islamic science" with "Arabic science" given that Islam drove it in 
the 
same directions as Christianity and Judaism, and that Christians and 
Jews were significant parties to the enterprise.  It's the common 
language and imperial cosmopolitanism that matters most.  Unless, of 
course, there is reason to label Scholastic and modern science as 
"Christian", and to revive the notion of "Jewish science" that was used 
in Germany in the 1930s and 40s.  It makes no sense to have one but not 
the other two.

There is also a big gap in the medieval interchange between Latin 
Europe 
and Arabic Europe which fuelled Scholasticism.  This oversight is 
widespread and often leads to mention of "the western world" without 
recognising that the world of "the orient" extended further west than 
the so-called western world did.

And I think that there's an over-emphasis on the Scientific Revolution 
at the expense of early modern science.  This is partly due to the 
difficulty caused by changing meanings of the word "science" and its 
cognates, and how the history and philosophy of the category can be 
stably approached.  I think that we all suffer that, though few seem to 
find it very interesting.

Someone posted a question about how the Hindu numerical system was 
imported to the Latin world: it went via Arabic.  One vector is Robert 
of Ketton who learnt it while studying in Iberia (Cordoba, I think) and 
imported it to England whence it was dispersed eastwards.

I think the suggestions about Islamic vs. Arabic science are particularly worth implementing.--ragesoss 22:54, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

• JA: J.L. Berggren, in Episodes in the Mathematics of Medieval Islam (Springer 2003), has the following to say about his choice of terms:

In this book I have restricted the word "Arabic" to designate only the language, and I describe as "Arab" only one coming from the Arabian peninsula. Many who could properly consider themselves to be Arabs are excluded on the basis of my usage but the meaning of "Arab", even within the Arabic-speaking world, has shifted too much over the centuries for the word to be of much use to me. I prefer the designation "Islamic" for that civilization whose mathematical achievements I shall describe. For, although it was home to men and women of many differnt races and faiths, its essential features were defined by those who professed the Islamic belief that "There is no god but God and Muhammad is the Messenger of God". (Berggren, p. viii).

• JA: Jon Awbrey 03:20, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Very interesting; thanks! I wonder if that convention (or the reverse) is becoming more common... the few books I have dealing with it are a bit older, and they seem to use "Arabic science" and "Muslim science" interchangeably.--ragesoss 04:12, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

There's some possibility of ambiguity in the term "Arabic science" since Arabic can also be used as an ethnicity, and a lot of science called "Islamic" science was of Persian origin. Also, "Islamic science" is also inaccurate. Many medieval Middle Eastern scientists were not Muslims. deeptrivia (talk) 04:17, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Was Arabic the common scientific language among Persians, Arabs, Andalusians, etc? If so, would it help to refer to Arabic-language science, with explanation of why we're using it in each article (a box?). A bit cumbersome, but possibly better than the inevitable edit wars as new readers/editors find each article. JackyR 13:31, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

For the Persians (correct me if I'm wrong), the language was Persian, I think even for the science/natural philosophy/etc.--ragesoss 17:01, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

And a good number of Greek texts were translated first into Syriac and then into Arabic. — Laura Scudder ☎ 17:07, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, History of science in the Middle Ages#The Middle Ages: Western World refers to "Christian philosophy", in the same breath as scholasticism. While religious labels do falsely suggesting exclusivity, it's also true that natural philosophy in non-Islamic Europe was heavily influenced by Christianity, both in its restriction and in its inspirations (the Franciscans and light, etc). By these lights, Christian/Islamic Science are not unreasonable terms. *sigh* Can't we just say "Middle-Eastern science"– it would be exactly as inaccurate as "Western science"...JackyR 22:51, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Portal

I've done a little work on the Portal:History of science, and I would love to get some feedback. I've included the biography sections from the science and the technology portals, and updated the selected article. Also, I added a link to the portal from Portal:Science; I'd like thoughts on the image there. I also replaced the messy code with the standarized template form being used on most of the other portals.--ragesoss 06:05, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Hey, pretty good. I like the theory behind it and the layout. --XenoNeon (converse) 19:09, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

History of Technology

Should the HS project templates go on Hist of Technology articles (Industrial Rev stuff, optical, mathematical and surveying instruments, etc)? JackyR 14:02, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I think that's appropriate, until there exists a separate history of technology project.--ragesoss 16:58, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, most definitely! There are many omissions on pioneering engineering achievements, and others need revision and enlargement. The Iron Bridge entry is a case in point, because much more is known now in 2006, than the article would indicate. Peterlewis 22:54, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

:-D JackyR 13:43, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I also consider that a hisotry of technology project is needed. Unlike today, the development of new technology was not driven by science. In metallurgy as recently as 1950, the practice (as known to artisans) was still ahead of academic theory. That is probably exceptional, but probably applies at earlier dates in ohter industries. Peterkingiron 15:42, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Hopefully there will eventually be enough editors on many more specific subjects that we'll need separate projects. But historians of science often also have an interest in history of technology, and vice versa. Being part of the same project does not imply that they aren't separate things; it's just convenient.--ragesoss 22:50, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

If we have separate projects, they will need to be well interlinked - the possibilities for duplication are scary. But yes, a "Hist of Tech" project (sub-project of Hist of Sci, dare I suggest?) would be brilliant. JackyR 23:08, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I hope we don't fall into the trap of thinking that the history of technology is a sub-set of the history of science, and worse there is even a subject called the 'History of scienceandtechnology' We should also not overlook the fact that the writings called History of Technology feguently discuss only the impact of technology on society, and not the histories of the technics themselves. A number of us writing on this in the UK in the 1980's coined the term 'Technical history' specifically for writings about the evolution of what the Victorians called the Useful Arts, in other words the 'how' of manufacture. Apwoolrich 07:19, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

MIA complex, second Forman thesis, etc.

I think we should have an articles on military funding of science (if there isn't one already that I'm not aware of) that addresses the formation of the Military-Industrial-Academic complex (Military-industrial complex doesn't cut it, and probably ought to have a separate article anyway) and the results of the massive Cold War funding of science (and the whole "applied" vs. "basic" thing). Having just reread Paul Forman's "Behind quantum electronics: National security as basis for physical research", I'm reminded of what an interesting topic it is, but I'm not sure what to call it.--ragesoss 03:17, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

You might need two articles here: one on the current US set-up, or possibly US/USSR Cold War scientific competitiveness; and the other on this phenomenom through history (and really not US-based). Call it something like Science for military purposes, or Military motivations for science? Not something I know much about, I'm afraid, tho obviously it would include the Longitude Prize.

Btw, I noticed the obvious comment is missing from ENIAC - that one reason there are so many competing "first computer" designs is because they occurred during a War and were military secrets. Will fix this. JackyR 16:50, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

• Military funding of science? Cold War funding of science? Actually a general article on Funding of science would be great, too. Another good article in this respect is Ian Hacking's bit on nuclear weapons funding in Social Construction of What, and of course Kevles' reply to Forman in HSPS ("Cold War, Hot Physics" or something like that). --Fastfission 21:24, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, funding of science could be the basis for a whole series. So much to write, so little time. Kevles is likely to be my advisor, so I should probably curb my enthusiasm about Forman, eh? But I think I read Forman a little more sympathetically than he does; I agree with most of his argument from "Cold War, Hot Physics", and but I don't think it engages that

effectively with Forman. Forman has a more nuanced view than the 'perverse departure from some true basic physics' thesis that Kevles pins on him. I'll have to check out that Hacking... I always look for an excuse to read philosophy.--ragesoss 22:16, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'll hold back what I think about Kevles. ;-) Anyway, if you start any of these (I think Military funding of science would be a good start, just because it has been talked about so much), I'll be happy to contribute with what I can. --Fastfission 04:11, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Funding of science would be a great series. I don't have the books to do any articles from scratch, but will start throwing down stuff which might be useful at User:JackyR/Funding of science. Meanwhile, the articles listed in this template may be useful. JackyR 17:19, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

As an aside, we really should have an article on Paul Forman, describing both of his famous theses and the general responses to them. --Fastfission 18:45, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Military funding of science

I've converted a term paper into Military funding of science, and I'd like help improving it. In particular, it's solely focused on the United States after WWII, so it needs some more material for an international balance there. But there's plenty that could be improved througout. Also, it needs images, and wikilinks.--ragesoss 22:31, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Collaboration for an article on scientific priority?

I'm interested in writing a little article on scientific priority (or priority in science, if you wish), which discusses historical issues with determining scientific priority and some of the ways in which historians talk about priority. I'll admit that part of the reason I want to do this is because I want something to point to whenever people start showing up with their little priority pushing obsessions, trying to elevate some unknown fellow into the discoverer of natural selection or energy equivalence or whatever it may be. The page would discuss some of the main historical approaches to priority and do well to emphasize that historians don't think a simple "just the facts and dates, ma'am" works very well; that the character/identity of the scientific claim in dispute is often itself disputed by the dispute (if that makes sense); and some of the reasons people like to try and make different priority disputes (the politics of it). I'm happy to write up a lot of this when I get the time, but assistance would be great. I'd especially like to use a few well-known examples, and input into these would be most helpful. Here's a short list of the ones I was thinking of including, and the issue I thought they illustrated:

• The "discovery of oxygen" (Priestly v. Scheele v. Lavoisier) (discussed by Kuhn in Structure) — does it matter if the scientist understands what they have supposedly discovered?
• Darwin v. Wallace — is it an issue of joint-priority, or does priority really rest with the person who worked on it first (but didn't publish)?
• Darwin v. Patrick Matthew and other "pre-discoverers" (discussed by Bowler in '"Evolution: The History of an Idea) — how much elaboration or development of a theory does one have to do to gain priority?
• Hooke v. Huygens and the balance spring watch (Rob Iliffe wrote an article on this in 1992 -- if anyone wants a copy of it, leave me a note) — Are two sides of a priority dispute talking about the same thing?
• Einstein v. Hilbert/Poincaré — What are the essential aspects of a theory which discern it from previous theories?
• Teller v. Ulam (gone about at some length in Richard Rhodes' Dark Sun; also discussed in Hugh Gusterson's "Death of the Authors of Death", which I'm also happy to send anyone who wants it) — In what way do personal motivations play into decisions of priority? and In what way to the institutions of scientific research (in this case, secrecy) impede resolutions of priority disputes?
• The "re-discovery" of Mendel's laws in 1900 (discussed in Bowler, Mendelian Revolution) — why assigning a previous priority can be helpful to scientists at the time (why Correns started insisting that Mendel had priority over De Vries), and how much of the present is read into the priority of the past (how much did the 20th century biologists "read into" Mendel's papers what they were themselves concerned with, different from Mendel's own context and interests in the material?).

Those are what come to mind when thinking about this off the top of my head. A few of these can also be easily used for the discussion of why people often dig up priority disputes (the Creationists love the Darwin ones because they want to show that Darwin was a fraud anyway; the anti-Einsteinians love the Einstein one for the same reason) and some of the ironies often involved (if Darwin's theory itself is wrong, who cares who came up with it first?). Any additional thoughts would be appreciated, about additional issues to include (or reasons not to include any of the above), or anything I might be missing for one reason or another. And again, if anybody wants any of the articles above for the purposes of assistance in this glorious task, just let me know: [email protected] --Fastfission 23:10, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

• Calculus controversy: Newton v. Leibniz, and even Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy. Joy... JackyR 23:34, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

• D'oh! Completely forgot that one! Such a big one too. --Fastfission 23:48, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

• First law of thermodynamics and its independent formulation by about 12 (literally) different people between 1830 and 1850.
• Tycho Brahe and Ursus (a case of actual stealing one person's ideas by another).
• For technology, the complicated international legal dispute of Nikola Tesla v. Guglielmo Marconi for radio, and some of Galileo's instrument disputes.
• Maybe the double helix; not exactly priority, but the closely related issue of credit.
• Ernest Lawrence makes an interesting example for artificial radioactivity in that he was producing it in his cyclotrons long before the Europeans announced its discovery, but had never let his counters run after the beam turned off, so he never knew; like with several other discoveries, he was able to reproduce the results immediately but didn't have any basis for a priority claim.

--ragesoss 00:24, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Importance of priority might include the "hero" model of science, very prevalent in some cultures: misunderstood genius defies the powerful to be proven right in the end. Hero model encouraged by Nobel prizes. This model fails to value collaborative institutional science, and I seem to remember is explicit in some UK funding decisions. Contrast with reputed Japanese model for commercial tech research - research, test production, feedback from shopfloor, more research: contributions from all levels, no "heroic" designer. Don't know about publs on all this (must exist, surely?).

Priority important for patents, of course. Just been dealing with this (and effect of good PR) at ENIAC. JackyR 01:05, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I would include also, as a contrast, some discussion of inventions or discovery that were and are totally uncontested. The separate condenser of James Watt's steam engine is surely one of these. Newcomen's engine had stagnated for about 50 years before this improvement was made. I don't know of any other claimants at all.

I think an article along these line is very worthwhile. There are a number of wikipedia articles that try a little too hard to assign classical discoveries and inventions to relative unknowns, denigrating the guys who really carried them through to something other than an idle idea. Much to my aggravation...DonSiano 01:47, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Leibniz and this project

I gather that this project wishes to encompass Gottfried Leibniz. That's fine and proper, but let me warn you all out there that that entry's discussion of Leibniz's scientific and technological accomplishments needs work. Much of what you will find in section 4 of that entry is breathless and hagiographic, written by eccentrics who think that Leibniz was the precursor of relativity, quantum mechanics, etc. This is overblown. Ditto for the entry's description of Leibniz the inventor. The problem here is that the vast part of Leibniz scholarship treats of his philosophy. Leibniz the religious, legal, and political thinker comes second. The mathematician and theoretical physicist comes third. Serious scholarly interest in the remainder of Leibniz's scientific and technological accomplishments is fairly slight to date, perhaps because much of Leibniz's writings on those subjects remains unpublished. In particular, I know of no book comparing and contrasting Leibniz's thinking about mechanics and energy (e.g., the vis viva), with that of Huygens, Hooke, and Newton.202.36.179.65 17:48, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

You put the problems with that article very nicely; I think the approach of members of this project has been thus far to sit back and wait until the anonymous edits settle down before trying to tackle the clean-up job.

Ballad of Gresham College

Question from JackyR (moved from main page):

• q:Ballad of Gresham College (dunno why that's blue - ça n'existe pas) Can someone with access to ISIS have a look at: "The Ballad of Gresham College", Dorothy Stimson, Isis, 18 (1932), 103-17.

1. Is the 1663 ballad vaguely interesting or worth referencing (put in Wikiquote)?
2. If yes, and you don't fancy scanning it yourself, p/copy and snail mail to me and I'll try out my new scanner/OCR software.

It looks pretty cool to me, although I had never heard of it before. It's on JSTOR, so it's available as PDF or TIFF (if you have JSTOR access).--ragesoss 18:32, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for putting that req in the wrong place. I don't have easy access to anything , sometimes not even my local city library, as I have ME. So I'm not in work/academia with subscriptions to journals. To put the lid on it, I can't even unpack my books until I've finished rebuilding the house around me – kinda slow-going when I'm sick – which is why my contribs are so hopelessly seat-of-the-pants. On the plus side, when I'm well I can get to Canterbury Cathedral archives and the special collections at University of Kent, and I have postal borrowing rights from Cambridge University Library (yet to find that useful). The long and the short of which is, cd you put the Ballad of GC on Wikiquote yrself, or email it to me at (DELETED FOR FEAR OF SPAM BOTS!!) JackyR 19:30, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Howzat?! Needs proofing and lots of linking before it can become protected (Wikisource is not as Wikipedia...). JackyR 00:26, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

History of science overview

I've added a "topics" box to the History of Science Portal, which is intended to be a jumping off point for the central history of science articles (many of which don't yet exist). Please, modify it as you all see fit to encompass the most important topics in the history of science, and give some feedback about what should or should not be included.--ragesoss 02:16, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Julian Schwinger

Can someone have a look at Julian Schwinger, maybe someone who has some idea what source theory is? Right now, it sounds like his greatest contributions to physics were being a cold fusion guy and having a lot of students with Nobel prizes. –Joke 03:13, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

As it says in the first paragraph, he was one of the developers of quantum electrodynamics. This was probably his greatest achievement and what he got the Nobel for, although he has always been overshadowed by his lifelong (friend and) rival Feynman. There should probably be more about QED in the article, although because Feynman came up with a more user-friendly formalism (Feynman diagrams), most subsequent treatments of QED are irreducibly Feynman-centric. Schwinger's treatment was much more mathematically austere (as I understand it), and possibly more rigorous (who knows?), so it's harder to popularize. (I never heard of source theory.) · rodii · 03:46, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Hm, the article on Freeman Dyson is crap too. Why does nobody care to write about scientists' seminal work? –Joke 04:06, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Molecular Biology

I came to "History of Molecular Biology" from the main page, where there is a prominent link. I think it is a very strange article, and it is hard to know where to start in fixing it. So for starters, I would just flag it as needing help. It is weak on facts, and very long on historical mumbo-jumbo. Beadle and Tatum did not demonstrate the existence of a "precise" relationship between genes and proteins. Jacob and Monod did not discover messenger RNA. Contemporaries would not have agreed that Avery "discovered that genes are made up of DNA." And it is hard to know what this is supposed to mean: "The development of molecular biology was not just the fruit of some sort of intrinsic "necessity" in the history of ideas, but was a characteristically historical phenomenon, with all of its unknowns, imponderables and contingencies." For a historian that statement may be profound, but speaking as a scientist I find it obvious, even banal. A good place to start would be with Judson's 'Eighth Day of Creation," and for earlier context probably Jacob's "The Logic of Life." Is there anybody out there who has read these books recently? Telliott 00:57, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestions. The article is a very early work in progress (which is why it was linked from the main page, because it was created recently), so it still has a long way to go. If you feel strongly about particular details, at this early point in the article's life, I would recommend you simply change them. I plan on turning my attention to that article eventually (while re-reading the Morange and Fruton references, in particular), but that probably won't be for a while.--ragesoss 01:21, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Ockham's Razor in Timeline of scientific discoveries

In Timeline of scientific discoveries theres is :

13?? - William of Ockham: Occam's Razor

but according Ockham's Razor some similar ideas was long before Ockham and definition was introduced not by ockam...??? See Roger Ariew's dissertation of 1976, Ockham's Razor... --AndriuZ 22:31, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

And it's not exactly a scientific discovery anyway. It should probably be removed (perhaphs in an act of invoking it?).--ragesoss 22:57, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Agree, it's rather "discovery in science", also it is important to track the first use of it. So we have few options: a) leave, but to mention, that priciple was named later (who?) b) move (not remove) to later years? ... more ideas? --AndriuZ 12:14, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Comments on Gresham Profs, please

I'm putting up the lists of all Gresham Professors over the years. I've tried out a few formats for these at User:JackyR/sandbox, as well as an unformatted list at Gresham Professors of Astronomy. The individual lectures, where available, are often of interest to Historians of Science, but perhaps less so to anyone else and will require some maintenance to keep up to date. Could folk let me know what you prefer? JackyR 16:18, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project

Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-class, B-class, and Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable articles? Please post your suggestions here. Cheers, Walkerma 03:26, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Userbox

For those of you who use userboxes, a userbox for this project is now available.--ragesoss 22:54, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

{{User WikiProject History of Science}}

This user participates in WikiProject
History of Science.

History of Astronomy

Wikipedia coverage of this topic is patchy and I would like to see it become more systematic. Greek astronomy in the History of astronomy is a good example: a couple of names are given but no attempt has been made to make sense of the Greeks in general. I have started an article on Greek astronomy, which could still use help. Similar topical articles need to be created for Middle Ages, Babylonian, etc., that could draw on good info already in Wikipedia. Let me know if you'd like to co-ordinate something.

BTW thanks for the userbox, ragesoss! Maestlin 22:40, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

What sort of data are you looking for in the category "history of astronomy"? I added the 19th century telescope maker Howard Grubb to this category and it was removed. The reason I put it there is that you will often see telescopes described as the "Grubb 28-inch" or whatever size. Whilst Grubb Parsons Ltd is still a company to this day Sir Howard is obviously not! As he perfected the periscope I would think he would belong in "the history of science" as well. Please let me know as I'm likely to add further articles so would like to get it right first time if poss!. Pansy Brandybuck AKA Sophia^TalkTCF 07:11, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I removed the history of astronomy category because typically such broad categories should only include topics in the history of astronomy, not individuals. I didn't know quite what to do since Grubb is a figure in the history of astronomy but not actually an astronomer (a subcategory of history of astronomy). Maybe astronomer would be an appropriate category for him anyway, or maybe we can add back the history of astronomy category.--ragesoss 07:25, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I understand the problems with categories having been a dba! However he's not noted as astronomer - even an amateur one - his dad Thomas was a keen amateur and I'm intending to add an article on him as he founded the Grubb company. I'm also planning to add Grubb Parsons Ltd as they made the INT and are important figures in the professional astronomy world. Just for background I did astrophysics at uni, demonstrated the 28-inch at greenwich to the public for a summer job and my husband was an astronomer at the RGO and manchester uni for quite a few years. He's used the INT and the AAT as well as others so hopefully we've got plenty to add between us. Pansy Brandybuck AKA Sophia^TalkTCF 08:38, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Maybe we ought to create a new category for instrument makers; I'm sure it would eventually fill out quite nicely. Welcome, by the way; I look forward to seeing what you and your husband add to the project.--ragesoss 14:41, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes please to cat for instrument makers! Btw, over at Commons there are separate cats for Scientific Instruments and Scientific Equipment, [1] without any noticeable criteria for either. Anybody got opinions on this?

I took the liberty of putting Brugg under Category:Astronomy people, which is for non-astronomers. It gives benefactors as an example but does not limit it. This question highlights a problem in the History of astronomy category: the inadequate subcategories. There are already many history of astronomy related articles on Wikipedia and this category is begging to be populated. A category for Chinese astronomy already exists. Can this be cross-listed as a subcategory for History of astronomy? What about Muslim astronomers and other cultural categories for astronomers that tend to be historical? What about astronomy books? I have a few subcategories to suggest:

• Historians of astronomy
• Astronomy by period, or similar, with sub-subcategories for astronomers in each period
  • Ancient astronomy
  • Medieval astronomy
  • Renaissance astronomy or early modern astronomy or astronomy in the Scientific Revolution
  • 18th century astronomy
  • 19th century astronomy
• Astronomy by culture, instead of organizing by period (or use both)

Or we could take a cue from the history of mathematics people and categorize astronomers by century. As I said, there are lots of articles already that should be associated with history of astronomy, but right now you need to know where to look.

I took a look at the instruments/equipment categories. My guess is that there are no criteria. Maestlin 17:36, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I can't see the difference between instruments and equipment myself - but I think the categorizing astronomy/astronomers by time period is a good idea. The instrument makers would be a perfect category for Sir Howard Grubb and his father so I'll keep my eye out for it - maybe this could be done by time period too. Pansy Brandybuck AKA Sophia^TalkTCF 19:39, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

How about starting with astronomers, something like: Ancient astronomers (up to 500 AD), Medieval astronomers (500-1400), Renaissance astronomers (1400-1600), then by century. Where is the right place to make a formal proposal? Maestlin 15:48, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

William of Ockham, Fact vs. Myth

JA: I posted the following comment on the William of Ockham talk page, but will copy it here, too, in hopes of getting some help from History, Latin, and Medieval Philosophy buffs. Regards, Jon Awbrey 11:38, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

JA: Since this article has been placed under the aegis of the History of Science, here are some problems that I notice right off with respect to its historical accuracy.

Ockham is considered one of the greatest logicians of all time. One important contribution that he made to modern science and modern intellectual culture was through the principle of parsimony in explanation and theory building that came to be known as Ockham's razor, which states that one should always opt for an explanation in terms of the fewest possible number of causes, factors, or variables.

JA: The first sentence is an example of "peacock phrasing", as further discussed under WP:Weasel. Ockham of course looms large enough to rank as a mythical figure these days, but in the interests of historical accuracy it is all the more necessary to distinguish the things that Ockham actually wrote from the things that are anachronistically attributed to him. The rest of the first paragraph fails to do that.

JA: To some extent we can get by on translations, but it takes a better reader of Latin than I to do an expert job of this, and so I will look up the appropriate tag to place on the article. Jon Awbrey 11:18, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Paul Ehrenfest

There is a discussion at Talk:Paul_Ehrenfest whether to include circumstances about his death. This is a question about what is relevant in a wikipedia biography and what is a private tragedy that does not belong here. I don't think this is an easy question and I was wondering if someone here would like to look at it. Zarniwoot 23:09, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

History of astrology

I noticed a number of dubious claims in the history of astrology article, particularly those concerning the Rg Veda. I suggest that someone flag this article for scrutiny. Thanks. Zeusnoos 18:34, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Le Sage's theory of gravitation

Anyone care to come to this page and try to help me to sort things out? I have a mainstream but anonymous editor who keeps panning the current article (which I have worked on with a pro-Le Sage gravitation person), but cannot get him to state specifically what is wrong. He seems to feel that calling people names and compaining about our lack of credentials is somehow helpful. It would be nice to get other opinions on the state of the article, and on this odd anon. --EMS | Talk 14:19, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Women in science

As a female scientist I was surprised at how incomplete this particular article was, with whole sections missing any information. Also in terms of systematic bias, it's terrible too, as there is no mention as far as I can tell of anywhere outside Europe or the US. I'm going to have a quick look at it now, but it would be nice if someone would join me, who's been doing this stuff a bit longer. Terri G 17:56, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I'd really liked to have worked on it, but I'm kind of curious about how I could improve it.--XenoNeon (converse) 07:31, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Right now the article has some empty sections that are basically just headings and stub tags. Anything you put into those, even a list of names, would be an improvement. The article says essentially nothing about problems women might have faced participating in scientific work. Finally, it has lots of redlinks that could be made into stub articles. Maestlin 00:24, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Just a note, I remember when Linus Pauling got his second Nobel Prize, the news was that he was the first man ever to win two Nobels. True, in its way, but he was not the first person - that was a women, Madame Curie. --Dumarest 14:19, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Pre-experimental science

The title of this topic has several problems:

first, it seems to reflect a Whiggish approach to the history of science — it evaluates early sciences by whether they live up to the presumed standard of modern science.

secondly, it implicitly assumes that all modern science is experimental, a view that many theoretical physicists (among others) would question.

This article could either be deleted, or it should have a major historiographical / philosophical introduction on the role of experiment in the history of science. Then the examples should be revised to deal more objectively with the changing roles of experiment. SteveMcCluskey 18:22, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

The title is definitely a problem, and renaming is probably the best solution (along with eventually expanding and improving it). The role of the article, in the current scheme of history of science overview articles, is to fill the spot before History of science in the Middle Ages, so chronology and integration into the traditions of Western thought, rather than any particular focus on experiment, is what the title should reflect. Any suggestions?--ragesoss 18:28, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I see your intent, and it could probably have been solved by another chronological topic -- say "ancient science." However, the "pre-experimental" title seems to have led development in another direction, including discussions of issues as late as Galileo and the overthrow of the phlogiston theory. Some drastic editing may be necessary to sort things out.--SteveMcCluskey 19:08, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there are any editors heavily invested in that article, so you're free to take it in any direction if you want to work on it. Drastic editing is perfectly acceptable. Some thoughts to take or leave: It would be nice to have an Ancient science article that is more focused than History of science in early cultures, in which case this article could be renamed and refocused on the changing role of experiment in the history of science (maybe Experimental method or even merge it with History of scientific method, which could serve as a needed corrective to the overwhelmingly scientistic Scientific method).--ragesoss 19:44, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Plato's Theory of Refraction (in Pre-Experimental Science)

The theory of refraction attributed here to Plato does not appear in his Timaeus, nor is it attributed to Plato in the mainstream literature on the history of optics. The account seems to fit the experiment described by Ptolemy in his optics, and most accounts see it as a case of typical Ptolemaic "data smoothing," in which measured data is smoothed in terms of Ptolemy's prior assumptions about the bending of light. This section (and the independent article on Plato's Theory of Refraction) should be deleted -- or retitled as "Ptolemy's theory of refraction" and revised to reflect the historical literature on Ptolemy.--SteveMcCluskey 20:20, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like you're the person best equipped to make the changes. Be bold! Another option would be incorporating the section into the existing article on Ptolemy if you think it would enhance coverage. Maestlin 17:04, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Getting the Portal to feature quality

I want to nominate Portal:History of science on Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates sometime soon. Please give suggestions on how it could be improved.--ragesoss 16:34, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

• Right now my browser is pushing the pictures for the "featured" items to the bottom of the screen. As a general question, I am curious how the "Did you know" and "featured" items are currently selected. Maestlin 20:41, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

What browser do you use? Lots of that formatting stuff goes haywire in certain browsers (especially Safari); I'll track down someone who can figure out what's wrong.

I invoke my authority as The Only Person To Bother With It for the selected articles. If you want to add or change any of the featured items to come, go ahead. I set up an unfortunately byzantine system for the selected article, but it automatically updates when the time comes. I have every other week call up the content from the week before, so the article changes semi-weekly. For the pictures, a couple other editors have suggested pictures as well, and I change it manually every Friday and create the captions. The selected scientist and selected inventor are actually transcluded from the science and technology portals, respectively, so they don't get updated as often. The did you know has been pretty neglected; I'm the only one to mess with it so far.

If you have any ideas that you want to suggest (rather than simply implement yourself, which would be fine), here are the places:

• Articles:Portal talk:History of science/Article for suggestions and discussion, Portal:History of science/Article/2006 archive for the content line-up and links to empty future slots.
• Pictures:Portal talk:History of science/Picture
• Did you know: just add new ones to the top and bump the bottom ones to the Archive

--ragesoss 21:01, 7 May 2006 (UTC)