Chapter 61 Part Two Results Chapter 15 Science 1

We must never forget that science and philosophy fought against tyrants long before we did.Its continuous efforts have created this revolution.As free and reciprocating beings, we should let both take root in us and cherish them forever.For science and philosophy will preserve the liberties we have won. -Member of the National Convention Goethe said: "Scientific problems are often problems that make people rich. A discovery can make a person famous in one fell swoop and lay the foundation for him to become a citizen... Every new phenomenon is a new phenomenon. Discovery, and every discovery is property. Whenever property is involved, his enthusiasm is immediately aroused."

—"Goethe Conversations", December 21, 1823 1 It is always dangerous to draw an analogy between art and science, because each is very different from the social relations in which they flourish.However, the sciences also, in their way, mirrored the Han Yuan Revolution in industry and society.Partly because revolutions create special new demands on science; partly because revolutions open up new possibilities for science and bring new problems to it;I do not mean to say that the development of science between 1789 and 1848 can be analyzed purely in terms of the social movements around it.Most human activities have an internal logic that at least partially determines them. The discovery of Neptune in 1846 was not prompted by anything outside of astronomy, but by Bouvard's diagram in 1821 showing the unexpected deviation of the orbit of Uranus from the calculated data in 1781; Since the late 1830s, the deviation has been large enough to assume that it was caused by some unknown celestial disturbance; and since numerous astronomers have begun to calculate the position of this celestial body.Yet even the most ardent believers in the purity of pure science realize that as long as scientists, and even the most remote mathematicians, live in a world wider than their profession, scientific thought is at least subject to the influence of discipline. Influenced by things outside the specialized field.The progress of science is not a simple linear progress. Each stage solves those problems that were implicit or obvious before, and then raises new problems.Scientific progress also benefits from the formulation of new questions, new perspectives on old problems, new methods of dealing with or solving old problems, entirely new areas of scientific research, or new discoveries of new theoretical and practical tools for research.Here, external factors have a large space to stimulate or shape scientific thought.This may not be very important if, in fact, most of the sciences of our time proceed along purely linear paths, like astronomy, which is still largely within the Newtonian system.But, as we shall see, the period in which this book is concerned was a period of entirely new developments in certain fields of thought (such as mathematics), a period of awakening of dormant sciences (such as that of chemistry), a period of A period that actually created new sciences (such as geography) and a period in which revolutionary new ideas were injected into other sciences (such as social and biological sciences).

Of all the external forces that bring about the development of science, the direct demands of scientists by government or industry are the least important.They were mobilized by the French Revolution, putting the geometer and engineer Carnot in charge of Jacobin's war projects, the mathematician and physicist Monge (Minister of the Navy from 1792–1793), and a team of mathematicians and chemists To be in charge of wartime production, as it had earlier put the chemist and economist Lavoisier in charge of estimating state revenue.It is perhaps the first time in modern times, or at any time, that such a well-trained scientist has entered government service, but it is more important to government than to science.In England, the principal industries of this era were cotton, coal, iron, railroads, and shipping.The art that revolutionized these industries is the art of those who have practical experience (too much experience).The protagonist of the British railway revolution is a Stephenson who knows nothing about science but can perceive what makes the machine work-a super craftsman rather than a technician.Those scientists, like Babbage, tried to make a contribution to the railway; those scientific engineers, like Brunel, tried to make the railway based on reason rather than pure experience.However, their attempts came to no avail.

Science, on the other hand, has benefited enormously from a strong push in technology education and less support in research.Here, the impact of the dual revolution is quite clear.The French Revolution transformed scientific and technical education in France, mainly with the establishment of the Polytechnic School (1795, aimed at training technicians of all kinds) and the prototype of the Supérieure Normale Supérieure (1794), which was The backbone of Napoleon's general reform of secondary and higher education.The French Revolution also revived the decaying Academy Royal (1795) and created (1794) within the National Museum of Natural History the first truly scientific research center beyond the physical sciences.For most of the period covered by this book, the world predominance of French science owes almost everything to these major bases, and especially to the polytechnique, which was the center of Jacobinist and liberal tumult throughout the post-Napoleonic period , is also the unparalleled cradle of great mathematicians and theoretical physicists.In Prague, Vienna, and Stockholm, in St. Petersburg and Copenhagen, throughout Germany and Belgium, in Zurich and Massachusetts, polytechnic schools were established following the example of France, with the exception of England.The shock of the French Revolution also awakened Prussia from its lifeless education.The New Berlin University (1806-1810), founded in the Prussian Revival, became the model for most Germanic universities, which in turn would set the model for academic institutions throughout the world.Such reforms also did not take place in England, where the political revolution was neither victorious nor a breakthrough.The great wealth of the country, however, made possible the establishment of private laboratories such as those of Henry Cavendish and James Joule, and the pursuit of scientific and technical education was common among sensible middle-class people. These two points have enabled Britain to achieve considerable results in scientific development.Count Rumford, an enlightened adventurer who traveled around the world, established the Royal Institution in 1799.The institution's fame comes primarily from its famous public lectures, but its true importance lies in the unparalleled opportunities for scientific experiments it provided to Humphry Davy and Michael Faraday.In fact, it was an early example of a scientific research laboratory.Science-promoting groups such as the Birmingham Crescent Society and the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society enlisted the support of the region's industrialists: John Dalton, the founder of atomic theory, was from the latter.London's Bentham School radicals established (or rather took over and changed) the London Mechanics Institution (today Birkbeck), developing it into a school for technicians; An alternative to the dormant universities of Oxford and Cambridge; the establishment of the British Association for the Advancement of Science to replace the dead aristocratic Royal Society.The purpose of the establishment of these institutions is not pure knowledge for the sake of knowledge, which may be the reason for the delay in the emergence of specialized scientific research organizations.Even in Germany the first university chemical research laboratory (Liebig's at Giessen) was not established until 1825 (with the support of the French, needless to say) .As in France and England, some institutions provide technical personnel, such as France, England; some institutions train teachers, such as France, Germany;

Thus, the revolutionary years saw a massive increase in the number of scientists and scholars and in the production of science.And, it has also seen the geographical boundaries of science expand outward in two ways.First of all, in the process of trade and exploration, new world fields have been opened up for scientific research and related thinking has been driven.One of the greatest scientific thinkers of the period covered by this book, Humboldt contributed initially as a tireless traveler, observer, and theorist in the fields of geography, ethnology, and natural history.Although his comprehensive masterpiece of all knowledge (Kosmos, 1845-1859), is not confined within the boundaries of some particular disciplines.

Secondly, the geography of scientific activities also extended to those countries and nations that made only minimal contributions to science at that time.For example, in the list of great scientists in 1750, there are almost no countries other than French, English, Germanic, Italian and Swiss.However, the shortest list of leading mathematicians in the first half of the 19th century includes Henrik Abel in Norway, Janos Bolyai in Hungary, and even as far away as Lobachevs in Kazan Base (Nikolai Lobachevsky).Here again science seems to reflect the cultural rise of peoples outside Western Europe, a development so strikingly a product of the revolutionary years.This national element in the development of science is also reflected in the decline of the cosmopolitanism that characterized the small scientific communities of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.The era of international celebrity traveling—for example, Euler from Basel to St. Petersburg to Berlin and back to the court of Catherine the Great—gone with the ancien régime.Since then, scientists have stayed in his language region, and except for short-term visits abroad, they have communicated with their peers through academic journals.Such publications were typical of the period, such as the Proceedings of the Royal Society (1831), the Comptes Rendus de l'Academie des Sciences (1837), the American Philosophical Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society (1838), or new professional journals such as Crelle's Journal fur Reine und Angewandte Mathematik, or Annals of Chemical Physics ( Annales de Chimie et de Physique) and others.