Imatge de l'autor

J. L. Heilbron (1934–2023)

Autor/a de The Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Solar Observatories

24+ obres 754 Membres 7 Ressenyes

Sobre l'autor

J. L. Heilbron is a Senior Research Fellow at Worcester College, Oxford

Obres de J. L. Heilbron

Galileo (2010) 150 exemplars
Modern Science (2008) 25 exemplars

Obres associades

L'estructura i la filosofia dels àtoms (2010) — Editor, algunes edicions5 exemplars

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The first half of this little book is unpleasant to read because of the pervasive references to religion. (And the references are insufficiently condemnatory -- no mention of the roles played by the two major monotheisms in the destruction of the Alexandrian library, for example.) The post-medieval half is more palatable but is too condensed and idiosyncratic, I'd say, to be useful to readers who don't already know the history of physics.
 
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fpagan | Hi ha 3 ressenyes més | Jun 21, 2016 |
J. L. Heilbron's Physics: a short history from quintessence to quarks is a wonderful telling of how the science of physics we know today as heavily advanced mathematics developed from antiquity's liberal arts. Written for the layperson who has an interest in both history and science, this book travels quickly through time touching down at key moments that helped transform physics.

There is not a lot of terminology or concepts that should require much looking up elsewhere for clarification, though many places will benefit from either refreshing one's knowledge or gaining a better knowledge of a person, era or principle. I think the book stands well without doing so and such additional research can be saved for sections the reader finds particularly interesting.

This should appeal to most readers of history, particularly history of science, as well as those interested in science who wonder how we have gotten to where we are.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
… (més)
 
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pomo58 | Hi ha 3 ressenyes més | May 9, 2016 |
At just 256 pages, this history of physics is indeed very short. But it still manages to pack an awful lot into that very short space: around 2500 years to be exact.

The book takes us from the “invention” of physics or physica as part of the liberal arts of Ancient Greece and Rome, wherein it was almost inextricable from its interconnections with philosophical thinking and cosmology, through its development in the Islamic world where astronomy and mathematics were to play a greater role, to medieval scholar-theologians and beyond. It touches on major figures like Aristotle, Ptolemy, Avicenna, Bede, Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton, on its way to the academies of the 18th Century, and on to the highly specialised discipline we know today.

Heilbron’s history is a simple narrative of the development of physics as a discipline, within different types of societies as they have emerged over the course of history. It shows this social and cultural history as being of central importance to the ways in which physics developed. A couple of particularly interesting sections on physics during the enlightenment, and the impact of the first world war on the study of physics, are excellent examples of this contextualising impulse in Heilbron’s narrative. As he states at the beginning, this book, ‘does not ransack history to find items in ancient and medieval science that look like physics, but sketches the place and purpose of physica in the societies that supported it.’

As well as offering a concise and accessible social, cultural, and political history of the societies in which physics has thrived, this book is also very good at introducing and briefly explaining the most important advancements that have taken place the field throughout each of the periods in question, in a way that is both interesting and informative for non-scientists like me.

Heilbron presents an interesting narrative, drawing on a variety of documents and records, from looking at the types of research topics that were winning Copley medals between 1750 and 1820, to the numbers of physics PhDs pursued in America and Japan after the First World War, in order to relate science to society from ancient Greece to the modern day. It is a great little book for general readers, particularly those with an interest in science or in history, and one that I thoroughly enjoyed reading.

For more reviews, visit my blog: https://ahermitsprogress.wordpress.com/
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Victoria_A | Hi ha 3 ressenyes més | Mar 11, 2016 |
Not knowing that much about this branch of the sciences, I was eager to learn about how the Ancient Greeks and Persians, to name but a few, found out about the world.
This is a well written, easily understandable book and one that I shall be happy to quote from when my physics teacher son brings up the subject!
I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review
 
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Welsh_eileen2 | Hi ha 3 ressenyes més | Jan 23, 2016 |

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