Argument

This paper aims to show how a nineteenth-century Korean scholar's mathematical study reflects the Korean intellectual environment of his time by focusing on the rule of false double position and the method of root extraction. There were two major trends in Korean mathematics of the early nineteenth century: the first was “Tongsan,” literally “Eastern Mathematics,” which largely depended on Chinese mathematics of the Song and Yuan period adopting counting rod calculation; the second trend was Western mathematics, which was transmitted by the Jesuits and their Chinese collaborators from the late sixteenth century. There was also an intellectual transition in late eighteenth-century Korea when mathematics, which had been of only minor interest for Confucian scholars, became an important part of Confucian pursuits. We can gain an insight into the history of mathematics in Korea by examining and understanding Hong Kil-chu's (1786–1841) mathematical studies and the context of the academic world of his time.

Argument

The paper is an exploration of the interactions between Einstein and Oppenheimer. It highlights the sharp differences in Einstein's and Oppenheimer's approach to physics, in their presentation of self as iconic figures, and in their relation to the communities they considered themselves part of. To understand their differing approaches to physics it briefly reviews the kinds of unifications that took place in physics during the first two-thirds of the twentieth century and points to the 1961 MIT centennial celebration to demonstrate the potency of Einstein's vision that there might be a fundamental theory from which all known theories could be derived. It also briefly reviews various aspects of the development of theoretical physics and of general relativity in the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, to better understand the context of the sharp, negative remarks that Oppenheimer made about Einstein and about his theory of general relativity in 1965 on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Einstein's death. To answer the question: “Why the antagonism on Oppenheimer's part?” it looks at Oppenheimer's and Einstein's relation to their Jewish roots, their stance regarding nationalism, and their philosophical commitments.

Argument

Heidegger's philosophy of science is notable for the prominence it gives to visuals and visualization. This is because for Heidegger, truth – including scientific truth – is the consequence of unconcealment, the lifting of a veil. But as scientific truth is a special kind, its visualization is also special: scientific truth reveals itself to us as, in Heidegger's words, “a calculable nexus of forces.” This nexus unconceals itself largely by means of instrumentation: it is this process of revelation that turns objects into objects of science. Despite its focus on visualization, however, Heidegger's philosophy of science cannot be applied directly to scientific visuals. His categories are not designed with visual exegesis in mind. For that purpose, semiotics, the science of meaning as defined by Charles Peirce, is a necessary intermediary between the abstract and the concrete, a taxonomy of icon, index, and symbol that can be employed as a set of hermeneutic probes that permit the exploration of scientific visuals as embodiments and carriers of scientific meaning. But not their sole embodiments and carriers. In achieving scientific semiosis, the verbal and visual must combine their particular strengths. This is also in accord with a Heideggerian view: science moves methodically from the visual to the propositional, though it never leaves the visual behind.

I have conducted a similar investigation on a text by a different author (S. T. Aksakov: “Childhood Years of Bagrov's Grandson”). The results of this investigation, which was performed on a text passage of 100,000 letters, are presented in the following tables from which one can see how and to what extent the limit theorems of the calculus of probability actually become evident.

Argument

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Russian mathematician Andrey A. Markov extended the laws of the calculus of probability to trials that were dependent on each other, purely theoretically. In two articles from 1913, which are presented here in English translation, he applied his theory for the first time to empirical material, namely text. After a presentation of Markov's methods, results, and possible inspirations, the introduction investigates the dissemination of his ideas to Western Europe and North America in detail. The experimental application of his method to various types of text finally determines its scope.

The Isotope School was established in 1951 by the British Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE) at Harwell following the model of the American Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies. Until its dissolution in 1967, it played an important role in the expansion of radioisotope techniques in Britain and Western Europe. This paper traces the origin and activities of the Isotope School, and describes the content of its courses and the composition of its audiences both in Britain and abroad. These illustrate the motivations behind the early diffusion of nuclear technology and the importance of Cold War politics in shaping the flows of materials and expertise. In particular, the ban on attendance of Eastern European students at the courses reveals a persistent tension inside the British nuclear programme: the conflict between the drive for disseminating nucleonics and the restrictions forced by national security concerns.

William Cullen, lecturer in chemistry at Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities, spent many years formulating his own theory of heat and combustion, the most developed version of which appears in a little-known set of lecture notes of 1765. Cullen's theory is of particular interest to historians of chemistry as an example of his ideal of ‘philosophical chemistry’, an autonomous branch of natural philosophy distinct from the mechanical philosophy, with its own general laws and explanations of phenomena justified by observation. The theory assimilated Joseph Black's recent discovery of fixed air as well as Cullen's investigations of the generation of heat in chemical operations. It was formulated just one year before British chemists' sudden identification of new ‘airs’ was dramatically to change the field of phlogiston theory. The theory differs in important ways from any version yet discussed. It successfully brought both heat and elective attraction within its explanatory domain. It set out a causal hierarchy which reversed the usual pattern evinced in earlier sets of lecture notes, subordinating the mechanical to the chemical in the form of Cullen's theory of elective attraction. The paper argues that Cullen was attempting to bring the study of heat as well as combustion within the bounds of his ‘philosophical chemistry’ by means of his single unifying theory.

Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen's Native Tribes of Central Australia (1899) is now remembered as an approximation of the anthropological method that would soon be conventional: a comprehensive study of a delimited area, based on sustained fieldwork, portraying a population's distinctive character. In 1913, however, Bronislaw Malinowski said of Spencer and Gillen's studies that ‘half the total production in anthropological theory ha[d] been based upon their work, and nine-tenths affected or modified by it’. Native Tribes inspired an intense international debate, orchestrated by J. G. Frazer, broker of the book's publication, predicated on the assumption that indigenous Australians were the most primitive of living peoples, whose totemism was somehow at the base of civilization's highest achievements – monogamous marriage and truly spiritual religion. But the debate proved irresolvable in Frazer's terms. Pondering conflicting interpretations of totemism, anthropologists rejected unilinear models of social evolution like Frazer's. Nationally differentiated populations of professional anthropologists emerged in the early twentieth century, developing distinctive theoretical schemes. Nevertheless, some issues central to the debate remained vital. For example, how were magical, scientific and religious modes of thought and action to be distinguished? And in Australia, analyses of indigenes were distinctively construed. White settlers, concerned to legitimate colonial rule, asked specific questions: did Aborigines have established ties to specific lands? Were Aborigines capable of civilization? Biogeographical theory underpinned Spencer's relatively liberal conclusions, which had precursors and successors in Australian anthropology: Aborigines had defined criteria of land ownership, their habits were suitable adaptations to their circumstances, and observed cultural diversity among Aborigines denoted their ‘nascent possibilities of development along many varied lines’.