Knowing and doing in the sixteenth century

What were instruments for

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8395804
AutoresJim Bennett (Museum of the History of Science, autor de correspondencia)
Año2003
Volumen36
Número2
Páginas129-150
Fecha de publicación2003-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe British Journal for the History of Science (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0007-0874 • E-ISSN: 1474-001X
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s000708740300503x
OpenAlexW2094660905
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas17

Despite recent work on scientific instruments by historians of science, the meeting ground between historians and curators of collections has been disappointingly narrow. This study offers, first, a characterization of sixteenth-century mathematical instruments, drawing on the work of curators, as represented by the online database Epact . An examination of the relationship between these instruments and the natural world suggests that the ‘theoric’, familiar from studies of the history of astronomy, has a wider relevance to the domain of practical mathematics. This outcome from a study of collections is then used in re-examining an established question in the history of science, the position of William Gilbert on the motion of the Earth

Astronomy · Epistemology · History of astronomy · History of science · Motion (physics · Natural history · Physics · Political science · Position (finance · Relevance (law · Scientific instrument · Work (physics · Artificial Intelligence · Classics · Computer Science · Ecology · Engineering · Historical Philosophy and Science · History · History of Science and Medicine · History of Science and Natural History · Law · Philosophy