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17504 results in General Science

Page 237 of 876

Physical Geography
  • Volume 1
  • Mary Somerville
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1848
  • Mary Somerville (1780–1872) would have been a remarkable woman in any age, but as an acknowledged leading mathematician and astronomer at a time when the education of most women was extremely restricted, her achievement was extraordinary. Laplace famously told her that 'there have been only three women who have understood me. These are yourself, Mrs Somerville, Caroline Herschel and a Mrs Greig of whom I know nothing.' Mary Somerville was in fact Mrs Greig. After (as she herself said) translating Laplace's work 'from algebra into common language', she wrote On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences (1834), also reissued in this series. Her next book, the two-volume Physical Geography (1848), was a synthesis of geography, geology, botany, astronomy and zoology, drawing on the most recent discoveries in all these fields to present an overview of current understanding of the natural world and the Earth's place in the universe.

The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex
  • Volume 1
  • Charles Darwin
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1871
  • In his introduction, Darwin reveals that for many years he had no intention of publishing his notes on this topic, 'as I thought that I should thus only add to the prejudices against my views'. By 1871, he felt that his fellow scientists would show a greater openness of mind to his arguments, even when taken to their logical conclusion and applied to the descent of man from the apes – the aspect of his theory which had been so widely mocked since the notorious question asked by Bishop Wilberforce at the Oxford debate of 1860: was it through his grandmother or his grandfather that Thomas Huxley, Darwin's champion, considered himself descended from a monkey? However, the book's focus on the area of sexual selection and the evolutionary importance of secondary sexual characteristics across the animal kingdom meant that the book was received without the public outrage that Darwin had feared.

The Power of Movement in Plants
  • Charles Darwin
  • In collaboration with Francis Darwin
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1880
  • Written in collaboration with his son Francis, a notable botanist, this 1880 book builds on Darwin's earlier investigations into climbing plants, orchids, insectivorous plants, flower variety, and the processes of fertilisation. This detailed study of many species from seed to mature plant further develops Darwin's work on adaptation and evolution, with the aim of collating the results of individual studies into common factors applicable to plants in general. Particular emphasis is given to analysis and investigation of the process here termed circumnutation, the movement of the stem of the plant in order to direct the head in certain directions. This is seen as of paramount importance, with the conclusion that it is modification of this feature that has enabled plants to adapt and evolve so diversely. The authors also note similarities between plants and animals, such as sensitivity to touch and habit of action at certain times.

The Effects of Cross and Self Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom
  • Charles Darwin
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1876
  • Darwin's impetus for the experiments of which the results are recorded in this book was 'a mere accidental observation; and indeed it required the accident to be repeated before my attention was thoroughly aroused to the remarkable fact that seedlings of self-fertilised parentage are inferior, even in the first generation, in height and vigour to seedlings of cross-fertilised parentage'. After eleven years of meticulous experimentation and observation, described in this volume, he was ready to publish in 1876 the detailed study which he regarded as a companion volume to his 1862 On the Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised by Insects. His 'first and most important of the conclusions which may be drawn ... is that cross-fertilisation is generally beneficial, and self-fertilisation injurious': this understanding is of course the basis of all modern plant breeding programmes.

Erasmus Darwin
  • Ernst Krause, Charles Robert Darwin
  • Translated by William Sweetland Dallas
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    24 September 2009
    First published in:
    1879
  • The author of this life of Erasmus Darwin, published in 1879, is given as Ernst Krause (1839–1903) a German biologist, but in fact more than half the book is a 'preliminary notice' by Charles Darwin, who explains in the preface that he has written it because of his access to family papers which add 'to the knowledge of Erasmus Darwin's character'. Krause wrote his original article in a German periodical because, in turn, he was intrigued by a reference made by Charles Darwin in the later editions of On the Origin of Species to his grandfather's anticipation in his Zoonomia (also reissued in this series) of Lamarckian theory: 'I thought immediately ... that this ancestor of his must certainly deserve considerable credit in connection with the history of the Darwinian theory.' The German text was translated by W. S. Dallas, who had previously collaborated with Darwin as both indexer and translator.

Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries visited by H. M. S. Beagle
  • Charles Darwin
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1840
  • Even before Charles Darwin changed the world with his theory of natural selection, he was recognised as an eminent scientist and natural historian. Published in 1840, his Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by H.M.S. Beagle reveals him as a writer of formidable intelligence and a keen observer of natural and human life. Darwin's journal encompasses every observable detail of the animals, birds and plants he encountered on the five-year voyage. It includes minute descriptions and even sketches of the movements and habits of hitherto unfamiliar species. Accompanying the entries are his own conclusions, analyses and classificatory notes that demonstrate his skill and talent as a naturalist. Darwin's entries on natural phenomena are interspersed with anecdotes of the indigenous peoples he encountered, transforming his journal from an impersonal scientific record to a book of true human interest.

The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin
  • Including an Autobiographical Chapter
  • Volume 3
  • Charles Darwin
  • Edited by Francis Darwin
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1887
  • This book, the third of three-volumes detailing the life of Charles Darwin, published five years after his death, was edited by his son Francis, who was his father's collaborator in experiments in botany and who after his death took on the responsibility of overseeing the publication of his remaining manuscript works and letters. In the preface to the first volume, Francis Darwin explains his editorial principles: 'In choosing letters for publication I have been largely guided by the wish to illustrate my father's personal character. But his life was so essentially one of work, that a history of the man could not be written without following closely the career of the author.' Among the family history, anecdotes and reminiscences of scientific colleagues is a short autobiographical essay which Charles Darwin wrote for his children and grandchildren, rather than for publication. This account of Darwin the man has never been bettered.

The Origin of Species
  • By Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life
  • 6th edition
  • Charles Darwin
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1859
  • This sixth edition of The Origin of Species was published in 1876. It is the last edition on which Darwin himself worked before his death in 1882, and offers a useful complement to the 2009 scholarly edition, edited by Jim Endersby and published by Cambridge University Press in Darwin's bicentennial year. The sixth edition contains a 'historical sketch' in which Darwin reviews the many works by eminent European and American scientists – beginning with Lamarck in 1801 – in which ideas of evolutionary species change and of natural selection were touched on but not developed. This edition, like all from the second onwards, contains the words 'by the Creator', controversially added to the famous last sentence in the book: 'There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one...'

On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences
  • Mary Somerville
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1834
  • Mary Somerville (1780–1872) would have been a remarkable woman in any age, but as an acknowledged leading mathematician and astronomer at a time when the education of most women was extremely restricted, her achievement was extraordinary. Laplace famously told her that 'There have been only three women who have understood me. These are yourself, Mrs Somerville, Caroline Herschel and a Mrs Greig of whom I know nothing.' Mary Somerville was in fact Mrs Greig. After (as she herself said) translating Laplace's work 'from algebra into common language', she wrote On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences (1834). Her intention was to demonstrate the remarkable tendency of modern scientific discoveries 'to simplify the laws of nature, and to unite detached branches by general principles.' This and her next book, the two-volume Physical Geography, also reissued in this series, were enormously influential both within the scientific community and beyond.

A Treatise on Astronomy
  • John Frederick William Herschel
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1833
  • Astronomer and philosopher Sir John Herschel (1792–1871), the son of William and the nephew of Caroline, published his 1833 Treatise on Astronomy in the 'Cabinet Cyclopaedia' series of which the first volume had been his enormously successful Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy. He is regarded as the founder of the philosophy of science, and made contributions in many fields including mathematics, the newly discovered process of photography, and the botany of southern Africa, which he studied while making astronomical observations of the southern hemisphere, and where he was visited by Darwin and Fitzroy on the Beagle voyage. It was however as the natural successor to his father's astronomical studies that he is best remembered, and this book, which is written for the interested lay person, places strong emphasis on the importance of accurate observation and on avoiding preconceptions or hypotheses not based on such observation.

On the Genesis of Species
  • St George Jackson Mivart
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    24 September 2009
    First published in:
    1871
  • St George Jackson Mivart was an eminent biologist, who was at first an advocate for natural selection and later a passionate opponent. In this beautifully illustrated 1871 text, Mivart raised objections to natural selection as a means for evolution. These included problems in explaining: 'incipient stages' of complex structures (e.g. the mammalian eye); the existence of similar structures of divergent origin; dramatic and rapid changes in form; the absence of transitional forms from the fossil record; and issues in geological distribution. Citing the giraffe's neck, the rattle of the snake and the whale's baleen, Mivart argued for the necessity of an innate power underlying all organic life. Mivart's book did not seriously undermine the concept of natural selection - Darwin and Huxley soon countered his 'formidable array' of arguments - but it helped move the debate forward. Sadly, it also led to a rift between Mivart and Darwin.

The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin
  • Including an Autobiographical Chapter
  • Volume 1
  • Charles Darwin
  • Edited by Francis Darwin
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1887
  • This book, the first of three-volumes detailing the life of Charles Darwin, published five years after his death, was edited by his son Francis, who was his father's collaborator in experiments in botany and who after his death took on the responsibility of overseeing the publication of his remaining manuscript works and letters. In the preface to the first volume, Francis Darwin explains his editorial principles: 'In choosing letters for publication I have been largely guided by the wish to illustrate my father's personal character. But his life was so essentially one of work, that a history of the man could not be written without following closely the career of the author.' Among the family history, anecdotes and reminiscences of scientific colleagues is a short autobiographical essay which Charles Darwin wrote for his children and grandchildren, rather than for publication. This account of Darwin the man has never been bettered.

The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin
  • Including an Autobiographical Chapter
  • Volume 2
  • Charles Darwin
  • Edited by Francis Darwin
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1887
  • This book, the second of three-volumes detailing the life of Charles Darwin, published five years after his death, was edited by his son Francis, who was his father's collaborator in experiments in botany and who after his death took on the responsibility of overseeing the publication of his remaining manuscript works and letters. In the preface to the first volume, Francis Darwin explains his editorial principles: 'In choosing letters for publication I have been largely guided by the wish to illustrate my father's personal character. But his life was so essentially one of work, that a history of the man could not be written without following closely the career of the author.' Among the family history, anecdotes and reminiscences of scientific colleagues is a short autobiographical essay which Charles Darwin wrote for his children and grandchildren, rather than for publication. This account of Darwin the man has never been bettered.

The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms
  • With Observations on their Habits
  • Charles Darwin
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1881
  • This book, published in 1881, was the result of many years of experimentation and observation by Darwin in the open-air laboratory of his garden at Down House in Kent. As he wrote in his introduction, the subject of soil disturbance by worms 'may appear an insignificant one, but we shall see that it possesses some interest'. He goes on to demonstrate the immensity – in size and over time – of the accumulated tiny movements of soil by earthworms, and their vital role in aerating the soil and breaking down vegetable material to keep the topsoil, the growing medium for all plant life and thus vital to human existence, fertile and healthy. At a time when there is huge interest in growing food organically and without using artificial fertilisers, Darwin's insights are as important, and his descriptions of his experiments as fascinating, as they were in the late nineteenth century.

Essay on the Theory of the Earth
  • 2nd edition
  • Georges Cuvier
  • Translated by Robert Kerr
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    06 August 2009
    First published in:
    1815
  • Essay on the Theory of the Earth was the last work of the scientific writer Robert Kerr who translated it from the introductory essay of George Cuvier's four-volume Recherches sur les ossements fossiles de quadrupèdes. Before its first publication in 1813, the essay was partly expanded by the geologist and natural historian Robert Jameson who wrote a preface and included extensive notes on mineralogy. Using geological evidence as its principal source of enquiry, Cuvier's essay attempts to address the questions of the origins of the human race, the formation of the earth, and the correlation between incomplete fossil remains and existing species of animals. Extremely influential in its own time, the essay remains a source of considerable insight into the early development of geological research, examining issues of continued significance today.

A Series of Discourses on the Christian Revelation, Viewed in Connection with the Modern Astronomy
  • Thomas Chalmers
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    24 September 2009
    First published in:
    1817
  • In 1817 the Scottish mathematician and churchman Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847), who was later invited to write one of the Bridgewater Treatises (also reissued in this series) published this book, based on weekday sermons preached by him in Glasgow. His main aim is to refute the 'infidel' argument that because the earth and humanity are such insignificant parts of the universe, God - if he existed - would not care about them. However, he is also addressing the 'narrow and intolerant professors' who 'take an alarm' at the idea of philosophy rather than incorporating science into their Christian preaching. Chalmers writes from the viewpoint of an admirer of science and modern astronomy. However, he also argues that wonder at the magnificence of creation and even acknowledging it as God's work is not enough, and that a truly moral Christian life is essential for salvation.

Insectivorous Plants
  • Charles Darwin
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1875
  • Darwin had long been fascinated by insectivorous plants, from the native British sundews and bladderworts to the exotic pinguiculas and nepenthes which he encountered during the Beagle voyage. Growing in environments low in soil nutrients, their highly specialised ways of obtaining enough food, including the capability for fast movement in the case of the Venus flytrap, were evidence of evolutionary adaptation. But he was also interested in what food they needed, and whether they would be selective when offered a varied diet; and how did the flytrap close its trap on its prey? Darwin conducted a range of simple but ingenious experiments on his collection of insectivores and observed and noted the results of each with his customary meticulousness. The results can be seen in this book, which remains of enormous interest to anyone whose imagination has been fired by these strange and beautiful plants.

On the Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants
  • Charles Darwin
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1865
  • Initially published by the Linnean Society, this 1865 essay was Darwin's first foray into the study of climbing plants. He was inspired to produce this work by a paper on the tendrilled Cucurbitacean plant by American botanist Asa Gray, with whom he had a firm intellectual friendship. Darwin examines in detail those plants which climb using a twisting stem, such as the hop; leaf-climbers, such as the clematis; tendrilled plants such as the passion flower; and hook and root climbers such as ivy. The conclusions reached by his study are presented in terms of the adaptations of various species to their environments, a continuation of the theories that Darwin had propounded in his On the Origin of the Species six years earlier. His passion for the design of the plants and fascination with the diversity of their powers of movement are clear in this accessible example of the process of evolution.

Footprints of the Creator
  • Or, the Asterolepis of Stromness
  • Hugh Miller
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1849
  • The geological writings of Hugh Miller (1802–56) did much to publicise this relatively new science. After an early career in banking in Scotland, Miller became editor of a newly founded Edinburgh newspaper, The Witness, in which he published a series of his own articles based on his geological research, a collection of which was issued as a book, The Old Red Sandstone, in 1841, and led to the Devonian geological period becoming known as the 'Age of the Fishes'. Footprints of the Creator (1849) described his reconstruction of the extinct fish he had discovered in the Old Red Sandstone and argued, on theological grounds, that their perfection of development disproved the current Lamarckian theory of evolution. The book, illustrated with woodcuts, was written partly as a response to the then anonymous Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1884), also reissued in this series.

Historical Origins of the Concept of Neurosis
  • José M. López Pinero
  • Translated by D. Berrios
  • Published online:
    06 August 2010
    Print publication:
    14 July 1983
  • The historical evolution of the concept of neurosis can be traced from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries where Piñero details its dependence upon fundamental medical concepts such as cause, function and regulation. This book gives a clear view of the meaning of the term neurosis historically and in modern times, and shows how the concept has been created and modified in response to the theoretical developments that have occurred in medicine over two centuries. It will be of great use to psychiatrists, neurologists, psychologists, and historians of medicine and science, and to general historians.

Page 237 of 876