Almagest

The advancement of the history of science in Russia is analyzed in the context of profound social, political and economic dislocations of the 20th century, when the academic community, facing tight ideological control, strove to achieve two goals, which sometimes sharply contradicted each other: to respond to requests of the party-state authorities, and to maintain their belonging to the world academic community. The paper identifies main stages in the institutionalization of the history of science in St. Petersburg and demonstrates how these goals were achieved in changing socio-political and cultural contexts through different combinations of totalitarian and liberal policies. These combinations were determined by the state science policy, as well as by scientists’ strategies to use the history of science as a means to justify the utility of science for the state and society, and in this way to secure funding and material resources. The comparative historical analysis of dynamic changes in research agenda, projects, publications, forms and intensity of academic contacts and migrations provides a better understanding of the ways in which Russian scholars have been included in international academic networks, as well as their place in international research projects. Particular attention is given to the contribution made by Russian scholars to the social history of science at its formative stage. The paper examines the role of political, social and economic liberalization in the expansion of the research methods and approaches, the increase of publications and scholars’ mobility in the last two decades.

In 1661 Kaspar Schott published his comprehensive textbook Cursus mathematicus in Würzburg for the first time, his Encyclopedia of all mathematical sciences. Its success was so great that it was published again in 1674 and in 1677. In its 28 books Schott gave an introduction for beginners in twenty-two mathematical disciplines by means of 533 figures and numerous tables. He wanted to avoid the briefness and unintelligibility of the works of his predecessors Alsted and Hérigone. He cited or recommended more than hundred authors, among them Protestants like Michael Stifel and Johannes Kepler, but also Catholics like Nicolaus Copernicus. This paper gives a survey of Schott’s work and explains especially interesting aspects: The dedication to the German emperor Leopold I., Athanasius Kircher’s letter of recommendation, Schott’s classification of sciences, and explanations regarding geometry, astronomy, algebra.

This paper criticizes traditional chronological teaching, instigated by recent studies by Kinchin that show how linear computer presentations barely contribute to the student’s understanding of the subject matter. I introduce non-linearity in teaching history, in particular in teaching history of science, as an alternative to standard didactics. Timelines are fundamental to linear teaching, but they are also valuable as a supplement to non-linear accounts. Hence, it is anticipated that a hybrid account (combining a non-linear approach with an evidently linear timeline “on the side”) serves an adequate understanding of the history of science better. An elaborated non-linear account of early radio astronomy is chosen as illustration. My aim is to contribute to a more efficient, adequate and above all sincere didactics of the history of science.

Historians have frequently charged Louis Agassiz, the most eminent naturalist in the United States during the mid-19th century, with being a victim of his own hubris and a philosophical idealist oblivious or at least indifferent to data of natural history that challenged his views. This article, which focuses on Agassiz’s conception of the nature of science and the scientific method, the inferences that he drew from natural history, and the reasons why he refused to abandon his commitment to the doctrine of special creation, seeks to show that Agassiz’s views were grounded just as rigorously as those of his opponents on a careful examination of natural phenomena.

The objective of this work is to analyze the first years of the Brazilian Republic (1883-1930), a little-explored epoch in Brazil, through the history of the popularization of science. It is the consensus that during the passage from the 19th to the 20th century there was a decline in the activities devoted to public communication, such as conferences, public courses, and the publication of magazines. The effort to understand the popularization of science in the first years of the Republic, principally in magazines aimed at the greater public. The exception can be seen in the magazine, Revista Brasileira (Brazilian Magazine), which continued to circulate, constituting a highly valuable source by which we can verify the diverse dimensions of the connection between the public and science. In this paper it will be analyze the role of territory as the main element which connects science and literature in Brazil during the First Republic.