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An Idiot’s Fugitive Essays on Science

Methods, Criticism, Training, Circumstances

  • Book
  • © 1984

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Authors:
  1. C. Truesdell

    1. The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA

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Table of contents (42 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xvii
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  2. Aims, Programs, and Methods

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1
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    2. Experience, Theory, and Experiment (1955)

      • C. Truesdell
      Pages 3-20

    3. The Field Viewpoint in Classical Physics

      • R. Toupin
      Pages 21-40

    4. Modern Continuum Mechanics in Adolescence (1962)

      • C. Truesdell
      Pages 41-48

    5. Purpose, Method, and Program of Nonlinear Continuum Mechanics

      • W. Noll
      Pages 49-68

    6. War, Socialism, and Quantum Mechanics

      • C. Truesdell
      Pages 69-69

    7. The Tradition of Elasticity

      • C.-C. Wang
      Pages 70-71

    8. Statistical Mechanics and Continuum Mechanics (1973, 1979)

      • C. Truesdell
      Pages 72-79

    9. Our Debt to the French Tradition: “Catastrophes” and Our Search for Structure Today (1978, 1981)

      • C. Truesdell
      Pages 80-94

    10. Draw from the Model and Imitate the Antique (1979)

      • C. Truesdell
      Pages 95-96

    11. The Role of Mathematics in Science as Exemplified by the Work of the Bernoullis and Euler (1979, 1981)

      • C. Truesdell
      Pages 97-132

    12. Conceptual Analysis

      • C. Truesdell
      Pages 133-138

  3. Criticism: Selected Reviews

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 139-139
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    3. The Light of History Upon the Present

      1. <i>Critical Problems in the History of Science</i> (1961)
        • C. Truesdell
        Pages 161-163
      2. Dugas’ <i>Histoire de la Mécanique</i> (1953)
        • C. Truesdell
        Pages 164-169
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Keywords

About this book

When, after the agreeable fatigues of solicitation, Mrs Millamant set out a long bill of conditions subject to which she might by degrees dwindle into a wife, Mirabell offered in return the condition that he might not thereby be beyond measure enlarged into a husband. With age and experience in research come the twin dangers of dwindling into a philosopher of science while being enlarged into a dotard. The philosophy of science, I believe, should not be the preserve of senile scientists and of teachers of philosophy who have themselves never so much as understood the contents of a textbook of theoretical physics, let alone done a bit of mathematical research or even enjoyed the confidence of a creating scientist. On the latter count I run no risk: Any reader will see that I am untrained (though not altogether unread) in classroom philosophy. Of no ignorance of mine do I boast, indeed I regret it, but neither do I find this one ignorance fatal here, for few indeed of the great philosophers to explicate whose works hodiernal professors of phil­ osophy destroy forests of pulp were themselves so broadly and specially trained as are their scholiasts. In attempt to palliate the former count I have chosen to collect works written over the past thirty years, some of them not published before, and I include only a few very recent essays.

Authors and Affiliations

  • The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA

    C. Truesdell

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: An Idiot’s Fugitive Essays on Science

  • Book Subtitle: Methods, Criticism, Training, Circumstances

  • Authors: C. Truesdell

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-8185-3

  • Publisher: Springer New York, NY

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

  • Copyright Information: Springer-Verlag New York Inc. 1984

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-1-4613-8187-7Published: 08 November 2011

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-4613-8185-3Published: 06 December 2012

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: 654

  • Topics: Philosophy, general, Mathematics, general, History of Mathematical Sciences, Physics, general

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