Nineteenth-Century Attitudes: Men of Science: Men of Science

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Springer Science & Business Media, 1991 - Science - 235 pages
The essays collected in this volume include studies of the history of the word scientist and the origin of the terms of electrochemistry as developed by Faraday, with the aid of the scholars Whewell and Whitlock Nicholl. In this bicentennial year of the birth of Faraday, the topic of his discovery of electromagnetic induction is timely, as described here in the story of the ten-year search that preceded it. Faraday enters also as the major proponent of the chemical theory of the voltaic cell, in opposition to Volta's contact theory. There is also an essay on Sir John Herschel's discovery of hypo and its application to photography. The book covers the formative period of science as a profession in England and introduces some figures of the transition to professionalism, as exemplified by Davy, Herschel, Faraday, Talbot, Whewell, and others, in terms of their work and their attitude toward it.
 

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Contents

SCIENTIST THE STORY OF A WORD
1
THE STORY OF THE VOLTA POTENTIAL
40
THE SEARCH FOR ELECTROMAGNETIC INDUCTION 18201831
84
FARADAY CONSULTS THE SCHOLARS THE ORIGIN OF THE TERMS OF ELECTROCHEMISTRY
126
HERSCHEL AND HYPO
173
HERSCHEL ON FARADAY AND ON SCIENCE
194
HERSCHELS MARGINAL NOTES ON MILLS ON LIBERTY
203
EPILOGUE
214
INDEX
221
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