Volta (eBook)

Science and Culture in the Age of Enlightenment

Giuliano Pancaldi (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2018
400 Seiten
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-0-691-18861-4 (ISBN)

Infos

Giuliano Pancaldi sets us within the cosmopolitan cultures of Enlightenment Europe to tell the story of Alessandro Volta--the brilliant man whose name is forever attached to electromotive force. Providing fascinating details, many previously unknown, Pancaldi depicts Volta as an inventor who used his international network of acquaintances to further his quest to harness the power of electricity. This is the story of a man who sought recognition as a natural philosopher and ended up with an invention that would make an everyday marvel of electric lighting. Examining the social and scientific contexts in which Volta operated--as well as Europe's reception of his most famous invention--Volta also offers a sustained inquiry into long-term features of science and technology as they developed in the early age of electricity. Pancaldi considers the voltaic cell, or battery, as a case study of Enlightenment notions and their consequences, consequences that would include the emergence of the "scientist" at the expense of the "natural philosopher." Throughout, Pancaldi highlights the complex intellectual, technological, and social ferment that ultimately led to our industrial societies. In so doing, he suggests that today's supporters and critics of Enlightenment values underestimate the diversity and contingency inherent in science and technology--and may be at odds needlessly. Both an absorbing biography and a study of scientific and technological creativity, this book offers new insights into the legacies of the Enlightenment while telling the remarkable story of the now-ubiquitous battery.

Autor

Giuliano Pancaldi is Professor of the History of Science at the University of Bologna. His books include Darwin in Italy: Science across Cultural Frontiers.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 5.6.2018
• Verlagsort: Princeton
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften
• Schlagworte: Abraham Bennet • Age of Enlightenment • Albrecht von Haller • Alessandro Volta • Aristotelianism • Aristotle • Battle of Marengo • Benjamin Vaughan • Calculation • Caloric theory • Charles Bonnet • Charles Coulston Gillispie • Chemical Industry • Cisalpine Republic • Claude Louis Berthollet • Democritus • Disenchantment • dover publications • electricity • Electrophorus • Electrostatics • Engineering • Ernest Rutherford • Explanatory Model • Felice Fontana • Fellow of the Royal Society • Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock • galvanism • Georg Christoph Lichtenberg • Giacomo Puccini • Giovanni Fabbroni • Grand Duchy • historiography of science • Humboldtian science • Humphry Davy • Ian Hacking • Immanuel Kant • Inbreeding • industrial espionage • Instrumentalism • James Franck • Jansenism • Jean-Baptiste Biot • Jean Nicolas Pierre Hachette • Jean Senebier • Johann Beckmann • John L. Heilbron • Joseph Priestley • Lazzaro Spallanzani • Leonhard Euler • Leyden jar • Ludwik Fleck • Luigi Galvani • Matthew Boulton • Max Planck • Mr. • Natural Philosophy • Niels Bohr • of education • On Practice • On Religion • opticks • Orrery • Paul Horwich • Peter Galison • Philosopher • Philosophy • physicist • Pieter van Musschenbroek • Pietro Verri • popular education • Pragmatism • Religion • Republic of Letters • Research Program • Richard Rorty • Robert K. Merton • Roger Joseph Boscovich • Royal Institution • salomon gessner • Saussure • Scientific Revolution • Scientism • Scientist • Silvio Pellico • Simon Schaffer • Society of Jesus • steam engine • Suppression of the Society of Jesus • Tempio Voltiano • theory • theory of heat • The Philosopher • Thomas Kuhn • Thomas Percival • Unintended Consequences • Voltaic pile • Werner Heisenberg • William Robert Grove • william whiston
• ISBN-10: 0-691-18861-0 / 0691188610
• ISBN-13: 978-0-691-18861-4 / 9780691188614