Authors:
- Will appeal to philosophers, historians of science, and scientists
- Proposes a new interpretation of the transformation in the study and philosophy of nature during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
- Underscores the role of mathematicians in transforming natural philosophy into modern science
Part of the book series: History of Mechanism and Machine Science (HMMS, volume 39)
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Table of contents (5 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
About this book
This book documents the process of transformation from natural philosophy, which was considered the most important of the sciences until the early modern era, into modern disciplines such as mathematics, physics, natural history, chemistry, medicine and engineering. It focuses on the 18th century, which has often been considered uninteresting for the history of science, representing the transition from the age of genius and the birth of modern science (the 17th century) to the age of prodigious development in the 19th century. Yet the 18th century, the century of Enlightenment, as will be demonstrated here, was in fact characterized by substantial ferment and novelty.
To make the text more accessible, little emphasis has been placed on the precise genesis of the various concepts and methods developed in scientific enterprises, except when doing so was necessary to make them clear. For the sake of simplicity, in several situations reference is made to the authors who are famous today, such as Newton, the Bernoullis, Euler, d’Alembert, Lagrange, Lambert, Volta et al. – not necessarily because they were the most creative and original minds, but mainly because their writings represent a synthesis of contemporary and past studies. The above names should, therefore, be considered more labels of a period than references to real historical characters.
Authors and Affiliations
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Ingegneria Strutturale e Geotecnica, Sapienza Università di Roma, Roma, Italy
Danilo Capecchi
About the author
Danilo Capecchi was professor of Structural Mechanics at University of Rome La Sapienza. His research into the history of science focuses mainly on classical mechanics.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Epistemology and Natural Philosophy in the 18th Century
Book Subtitle: The Roots of Modern Physics
Authors: Danilo Capecchi
Series Title: History of Mechanism and Machine Science
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52852-2
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Engineering, Engineering (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-52851-5Published: 26 August 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-52854-6Published: 26 August 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-52852-2Published: 25 August 2020
Series ISSN: 1875-3442
Series E-ISSN: 1875-3426
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIX, 550
Number of Illustrations: 99 b/w illustrations, 2 illustrations in colour
Topics: History of Technology, History of Philosophy, History of Mathematical Sciences