Research Catalog

Title

Before big science : the pursuit of modern chemistry and physics, 1800-1940 / Mary Jo Nye.

Author

Nye, Mary Jo

Publication

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1999.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xviii, 282 p. : ill., ports.; 21 cm.

Summary

• In this book, Mary Jo Nye traces the social and intellectual history of the physical sciences from the early nineteenth century to the beginning of the Second World War. Nye examines the sweeping transformation of scientific institutions and professions during the period and the groundbreaking experiments and scientific investigations that fueled that change, from the earliest investigations of molecular chemistry and field dynamics to the revolutionary breakthroughs of quantum mechanics, relativity theory, and nuclear science. Nye intersperses the narrative of these developments with profiles of key figures of modern science, from Dalton to Pasteur to Einstein to Bohr.
• Notable features of the book include an insightful analysis of the parallel trajectories of modern chemistry and physics and the work of scientists - such as John Dalton, Michael Faraday, Hermann von Helmholtz, Marie Curie, Ernest Rutherford, Dorothy Hodgkin, and Linus Pauling - who played prominent roles in the development of both disciplines.

Subject

• Geschichte 1800-1940
• 1800-1999
• Chemistry > History > 19th century
• Chemistry > History > 20th century
• Physics > History > 19th century
• Physics > History > 20th century

Genre/Form

History

Note

• Originally published: New York : Twayne Publishers, 1996.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 248-267) and indexes.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

1. Disciplinary Organization in Nineteenth-Century Chemistry and Physics -- 2. Dalton's Atom and Two Paths for the Study of Matter -- 3. The Electromagnetic View of Nature and a World of Ether -- 4. Thermodynamics, Thermochemistry, and the Science of Energy -- 5. Theory and Practice in Organic Chemistry: Biological Modes of Thought in a Physical Science -- 6. A New Chemistry, A New Physics: Radiations, Particles, and Wave Mechanics after 1895 -- 7. Nationalism, Internationalism, and the Creation of Nuclear Science, 1914-1940 -- Conclusion: The Claims of Science.

ISBN

0674063821

OCLC

• 43679612
• SCSB-12012219

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library