Suixuan

Author: 胡翌霖

A General History of Science 16: The Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics

History of Science & Technology2015.06.18
A General History of Science 16: The Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics
Today is the final class, and we are talking about twentieth-century science. By “the twentieth century,” our main focus is on the scientific revolution in physics in the early twentieth century—that is, the rise of relativity and quantum mechanics. As for the scientific frontiers of the second half of the twentieth century and even the twenty-first century, we will not be dealing with them in this course. History can never be exhausted; any narrative strategy is, in the phrase, “to miss much while touching on little” (挂一漏万). The issue is not how to avoid omissions, but rather what manner of omission one adopts. The choices I have made in this…
course causality quantum mechanics Einstein
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2015年6月18日
Lectures on the General History of Science 15: A Special Topic in the History of Mathematics (The Mathematical Revolution)

History of Science & Technology2015.06.12
Lectures on the General History of Science 15: A Special Topic in the History of Mathematics (The Mathematical Revolution)
Today is the penultimate class, so let me first talk a little about the course assignments. For this course, the requirements are a midterm reading report (optional) + a final paper. I have currently received four midterm reading reports, and I should already have replied to all of them by email. If you sent one but did not receive my reply, please send it again, or try another email address. Under normal circumstances, I should send a confirmation reply within two or three days, and I may also discuss some specific issues in the assignment with you by email. The point of assigning the reading report is to encourage everyone…
history of science course mathematics Scientific Revolution
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2015年6月12日
Lecture Notes on the General History of Science 14: Science and the Industrial Revolution [Starting Next Week, We’ll Move to a Different Classroom]

History of Science & Technology2015.06.05
Lecture Notes on the General History of Science 14: Science and the Industrial Revolution [Starting Next Week, We’ll Move to a Different Classroom]
First, a quick notice: we still have two classes after this. The classroom will be changed for these two sessions; it seems that the entire Jiao Eight building has been requisitioned by the school. Next week and the week after next, we will move to Jiao Nine201for class. Last time we mentioned that in the eighteenth century, the development of theoretical science, experimental science, and industrial technology was still relatively independent; theoretical science did not directly drive the Industrial Revolution, and even theory and experiment were out of sync. Last time, one student raised an objection and showed me a clip from *The Rise of Great Powers* and…
history of science course Scientific Revolution Industrial Revolution
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2015年6月5日
Lectures on the General History of Science 13: Science in the Age of Enlightenment

History of Science & Technology2015.05.28
Lectures on the General History of Science 13: Science in the Age of Enlightenment
Today we are talking about eighteenth-century science. From the Glorious Revolution in England in 1688 to the French Revolution in 1789, the eighteenth century can be said to have been a century of transformation in history. The Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution both took place in this century, and the independence of the United States and the rise of Russia also both occurred in this century. But in terms of the history of science, the eighteenth century seems to have been a relatively uneventful period. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries before it were the sweeping and magnificent Scientific Revolution; and the nineteenth century is called the century of science, with…
technology history of science course Kant
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2015年5月28日
Lectures on the General History of Science 12: Discussion Session

Teaching & Courses2015.05.22
Lectures on the General History of Science 12: Discussion Session
This week was the long-anticipated discussion class, so there was no lecture script~ There are 15 students enrolled in this course, but in practice only about half can usually make it. This time was the same: a total of 7 students came, and only 6 actually took part in the discussion. Even so, the discussion turned out pretty well. At least everyone had something to say, and we used up the whole class period. What is somewhat regrettable is that I feel my course has had very little impact on the students. For example, one student asked why ancient Greek science, which also originated in a tendency toward theory, eventually…
history of science history course Christianity
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2015年5月22日
Lectures on the General History of Science 11: Alchemy and the Scientific Revolution [Next Week’s Class Discussion]

History of Science & Technology2015.05.14
Lectures on the General History of Science 11: Alchemy and the Scientific Revolution [Next Week’s Class Discussion]
Last class, we finished the mechanical revolution all the way up to Newton. The problems in physics provoked by Copernicus’s astronomical revolution were ultimately solved by Newtonian mechanics, but Newtonian mechanics itself implied a certain conceptual transformation amounting to sleight of hand: the distinction between nature and artifice, the distinction between inwardness and outwardness, and the boundary between physics and mechanics were all finally broken through, and the introduction of the concept of “force” ultimately substituted itself for people’s search for “cause.” We said that Newtonian mechanics is accidental in name; of course we could equally have had something like Empedology or Zhang San Dology, and F=ma could be replaced…
history of science course Scientific Revolution nature
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2015年5月14日
Lectures on the General History of Science 10: The Mechanics Revolution [Class Discussion the Week After Next]

History of Science & Technology2015.05.07
Lectures on the General History of Science 10: The Mechanics Revolution [Class Discussion the Week After Next]
Today the Department of Astronomy has an important lecture, and the astronomy students all took leave together, so that attendance in class fell to a new low; in the second period, only 3 people were left…… Although I do not require attendance every time, such a dismal turnout is still rather depressing. It seems I need to think of some way around it. There was a similar phenomenon when I used to take Professor Wu’s class: once the semester had entered its latter half and reached the stage of the Scientific Revolution, attendance actually dropped by quite a lot. Perhaps after half a semester of classes everyone was simply exhausted,…
course Aristotle Scientific Revolution Copernicus
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2015年5月7日
Lecture Notes on the General History of Science 9: The Copernican Revolution

History of Science & Technology2015.04.30
Lecture Notes on the General History of Science 9: The Copernican Revolution
Last time we talked about printing as the technological environment of the Scientific Revolution. Starting from this lesson, we will formally enter the period of the Scientific Revolution. Last time we mentioned that, when talking about the Scientific Revolution, we must at least distinguish three lines of development: first, astronomy; second, physics. These two lines converge in Newton, and can together be called the tradition of the mathematical sciences; this also constitutes the so-called “main line” of the Scientific Revolution in the usual sense. The third is alchemy and magic. This line stretches back farther than Copernicus and Newton; although its emblematic result is the rise of chemistry, its significance…
history of science philosophy of science course Scientific Revolution
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2015年4月30日
Lectures on the General History of Science 8: Printing and the Scientific Revolution

History of Science & Technology2015.04.23
Lectures on the General History of Science 8: Printing and the Scientific Revolution
Last class I talked about medieval science. We discussed the emergence of the “university,” and the conceptual preconditions that Christian theology may have provided for modern science. But I have not yet given a concrete introduction to the theoretical creativity of medieval scholastic philosophers. I had originally considered giving a comprehensive account of the specific contents of medieval science in this class as well, but after weighing it up, I decided not to devote a single lecture to it. The main contributions of medieval science were concentrated in natural philosophy and in the clarification of certain concepts; they are relatively speculative in character, and if treated in a separate class…
course Aristotle Scientific Revolution natural history
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2015年4月23日
Lecture Notes on the General History of Science 7: The Middle Ages and Christian Science

History of Science & Technology2015.04.17
Lecture Notes on the General History of Science 7: The Middle Ages and Christian Science
After finishing with the Arabs and China, let us return to the West and talk about medieval science. As for the Middle Ages, I was wondering whether I should spend two classes on them, because traditionally this period has been rather neglected; people probably know very little about it, yet in fact it is extremely important. To discuss why modern science did not arise in the Arab world or in China, on the one hand we have to talk about what was lacking in Arab and Chinese civilization, and on the other hand we must also make clear what medieval Europe actually had. In this lecture we will mainly talk…
history of science scholarship education course
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2015年4月17日