David Philip Miller

Discovering Water (eBook, PDF)

James Watt, Henry Cavendish and the Nineteenth-Century 'Water Controversy'

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

Discovering Water addresses why the rival claims of long dead natural philosophers so preoccupied a wide range of people in the mid-nineteenth century. The answer to the question 'who was responsible for discovering water was a compound, not an element?' as David Philip Miller demonstrates, lies in understanding the enormous symbolic importance of James Watt and Henry Cavendish in nineteenth-century science and society. More than credit for a particular discovery was at stake here. The varied agendas of the participants in the Victorian water controversy led it to be driven by filial loyalty and nationalism but also, most importantly, by ideological struggles about the nature of science and its relation to technological invention and innovation in British society. At a more general and theoretical level, Discovering Water also provides important insights into conceptions of the nature of discovery as they are debated by modern historians, philosophers and sociologists of science.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Taylor & Francis
• Seitenzahl: 330
• Erscheinungstermin: 15. Mai 2017
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781351943765
• Artikelnr.: 48419494

Autorenporträt

David Philip Miller is a Senior Lecturer in the School of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of New South Wales, Australia.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents: Preface
Introduction
The nature of discovery: the attributional model
The beginnings of a dispute and its interpretation
Attributional survey: phase one, 1784-1830
Keeping account: James Watts Jr and the filial project
The French connection: Arago re-opens the controversy
Managing the symbols of Victorian science: 'gentlemen of science' and the water controversy
The advocates of Watt: Brougham, Jeffrey and Muirhead
The defence of Cavendish: character, precision and discipline
The controversy joined, 1840-60
Still waters: attributional survey, 1830-1900
Conclusions
Appendix
Bibliography
Index.