Research Catalog

Title

Representing electrons : a biographical approach to theoretical entities / Theodore Arabatzis.

Author

Arabatzis, Theodore, 1965-

Publication

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, c2006.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xiv, 295 p.; 24 cm.

Summary

Using the electron--or rather its representation--as a historical actor, Theodore Arabatzis illustrates the emergence and gradual consolidation of its representation in physics, its career throughout old quantum theory, and its appropriation and reinterpretation by chemists. As Arabatzis develops this novel biographical approach, he portrays scientific representations as partly autonomous agents with lives of their own. Furthermore, he argues that the considerable variance in the representation of the electron does not undermine its stable identity or existence. Raising philosophical issues of contentious debate in the history and philosophy of science--namely, scientific realism and meaning change--Arabatzis addresses the history of the electron across disciplines, integrating historical narrative with philosophical analysis in a book that will be a touchstone for historians and philosophers of science and scientists alike.

Subject

• Geschichte 1890-1925
• 1890-1900
• 1900-1910
• 1910-1920
• 1920-1930
• Electrons > History
• Science > Philosophy
• Realism

Genre/Form

History

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Methodological preliminaries -- Why write biographies of theoretical entities? -- Rethinking "the discovery of the electron" -- The birth and infancy of the representation of the electron -- The genesis of the quantum electron -- Between relativity and correspondence -- "How the electrons spend their leisure time" : the chemists' perspective -- Forced to spin by Uhlenbeck and Goudsmit -- Identifying the electron : meaning variance and the historicity of scientific realism.

ISBN

• 0226024202 (alk. paper)
• 0226024210 (pbk. : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2005004218

OCLC

• 57694887
• SCSB-10057951

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library