The Dictionary of Scientific Biography is a scholarly reference work that was published from 1970 through 1980 by publisher Charles Scribner's Sons, with main editor the science historian Charles Gillispie, from Princeton University. It consisted of sixteen volumes. It is supplemented by the New Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2007). Both these publications are included in a later electronic book, called the Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography.
The Dictionary of Scientific Biography is a scholarly English-language reference work consisting of biographies of scientists from antiquity to modern times but excluding scientists who were alive when the Dictionary was first published. It includes scientists who worked in the areas of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and earth sciences. The work is notable for being one of the most substantial reference works in the field of history of science, containing extensive biographies on hundreds of figures. It gives information about both the personal biography and in considerable detail about the scientific contributions. Engineers, physicians, social scientists and philosophers only appeared "when their work was intrinsically related to the sciences of nature or to mathematics." [1] [2] Though the Dictionary has worldwide coverage, the editors write that it focuses most on Western scientists, due to the limited availability of scholarship about Asian, Indian and Islamic historical scientists at the time. [1]
The articles in the Dictionary are typically 1–5 pages and are written by eminent historians of science. All articles list a selection of the original works of the subject, as well as a comprehensive list of the secondary literature about them (which may be in any language), including early works as well as more contemporary ones.
The first volume of the Dictionary was first put out in 1970, under the general editorship of Charles Coulston Gillispie. Charles Scribner Jr., the head of Charles Scribner's Sons, initiated the discussions with Gillispie and took a special interest in it. [3] [4] The set was completed in 1980. The Dictionary was published in 16 volumes under the auspices of the American Council of Learned Societies by Charles Scribner's Sons with support from the National Science Foundation. [3] Volume 15 is Supplement I; it contains additional biographies as well as topical essays on non-Western scientific traditions. Volume 16 is the general index. A 2-volume Supplement II with additional biographies was published in 1990.
In 1981, after the 16-volume set was complete, Scribner's published a one-volume abridgment, the Concise Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Its second edition was published in 2001 and includes content from the 1990 Supplement II.
In 1981, the American Library Association awarded the Dartmouth Medal to the Dictionary as a reference work of outstanding quality and significance. [5]
In 1975, three chapters from the Dictionary of Scientific Biography were expanded and published individually in Scribner's DSB Editions series:
The New Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Noretta Koertge, was published by Scribner's in December 2007 with 775 entries. [6] Nearly 500 of these are new articles about scientists who died after 1980 and thus were not included in the original Dictionary; 75 articles are on figures from earlier periods not included in the original Dictionary of Scientific Biography, including a substantial number of female and third-world scientific figures.
In 2007, Charles Scribner's Sons published the Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography as an e-book. It includes the complete text of both print editions, with a unified index and other finding aids. The e-book version is available as part of the Gale Virtual Reference Library. [7]
The DSB has been widely praised as a monumental undertaking. One reviewer of another work wrote that "The Dictionary of Scientific Biography (DSB) has become the standard against which to measure all multi-volume biographical works in history of science." [8] A few have noted major omissions as being a problem. Additionally, two major historians of science were omitted among the contributors, Joseph Needham and Otto Neugebauer. According to Donald Fleming, the worst account was that of J.D. Bernal by C.P. Snow, while Joseph Needham found it the most brilliant entry. [9] According to Fernando Q. Gouvêa, the 2008 Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography, despite some significant problems, "remains an essential resource for those interested in the lives of scientists." [10]
An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either observational or theoretical astronomy. Examples of topics or fields astronomers study include planetary science, solar astronomy, the origin or evolution of stars, or the formation of galaxies. A related but distinct subject is physical cosmology, which studies the Universe as a whole.
Claude Louis Berthollet was a Savoyard-French chemist who became vice president of the French Senate in 1804. He is known for his scientific contributions to the theory of chemical equilibria via the mechanism of reverse chemical reactions, and for his contribution to modern chemical nomenclature. On a practical basis, Berthollet was the first to demonstrate the bleaching action of chlorine gas, and was first to develop a solution of sodium hypochlorite as a modern bleaching agent.
Theodor Svedberg was a Swedish chemist and Nobel laureate for his research on colloids and proteins using the ultracentrifuge. Svedberg was active at Uppsala University from the mid-1900s to late 1940s. While at Uppsala, Svedberg started as a docent before becoming the university's physical chemistry head in 1912. After leaving Uppsala in 1949, Svedberg was in charge of the Gustaf Werner Institute until 1967. Apart from his 1926 Nobel Prize, Svedberg was named a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 1944 and became part of the National Academy of Sciences in 1945.
Heinrich Friedrich Emil Lenz, usually cited as Emil Lenz or Heinrich Lenz in some countries, was a Russian physicist who is most noted for formulating Lenz's law in electrodynamics in 1834.
Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Kathīr al-Farghānī also known as Alfraganus in the West, was an astronomer in the Abbasid court in Baghdad, and one of the most famous astronomers in the 9th century. Al-Farghani composed several works on astronomy and astronomical equipment that were widely distributed in Arabic and Latin and were influential to many scientists. His best known work, Kitāb fī Jawāmiʿ ʿIlm al-Nujūmi, was an extensive summary of Ptolemy's Almagest containing revised and more accurate experimental data. Christopher Columbus used Al Farghani's calculations for his voyages to America. In addition to making substantial contributions to astronomy, al-Farghani also worked as an engineer, supervising construction projects on rivers in Cairo, Egypt. The lunar crater Alfraganus is named after him.
The year 1591 in science and technology included many events, some of which are listed here.
Martin Hans Christian Knudsen was a Danish physicist who taught and conducted research at the Technical University of Denmark.
Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Habib ibn Sulayman ibn Samra ibn Jundab al-Fazari was an Arab philosopher, mathematician and astronomer.
Abu Jafar Muhammad ibn Husayn Khazin, also called Al-Khazin, was an Iranian Muslim astronomer and mathematician from Khorasan. He worked on both astronomy and number theory.
Niccolò Cabeo, SJ was an Italian Jesuit philosopher, theologian, engineer and mathematician.
Jules Célestin Jamin was a French physicist. He was professor of physics at École polytechnique from 1852 to 1881 and received the Rumford Medal in 1858 for his work on light. He improved David Brewster's inclined interference plates with the development of the Jamin interferometer.
Silvio Anthony Bedini was an American historian, specialising in early scientific instruments. He was Historian Emeritus of the Smithsonian Institution, where he served on the professional staff for twenty-five years, retiring in 1987.
Gasparo Berti was an Italian mathematician, astronomer and physicist. He was probably born in Mantua and spent most of his life in Rome. He is most famous today for his experiment in which he unknowingly created the first working barometer. Though he was best known for his work in mathematics and physics, little of his work in either survives.
Charles Coulston Gillispie was an American historian of science. He was the Dayton-Stockton Professor of History of Science at Princeton University, and was credited with building Princeton's history of science program into a leading center for the field. He was best known for his general introduction to the history of science, The Edge of Objectivity, his deep two-volume study of French scientific history Science and Polity in France, and his chief editor role for the 16-volume, 5,000-entry Dictionary of Scientific Biography.
"On Physical Lines of Force" is a four-part paper written by James Clerk Maxwell, published in 1861. In it, Maxwell derived the equations of electromagnetism in conjunction with a "sea" of "molecular vortices" which he used to model Faraday's lines of force. Maxwell had studied and commented on the field of electricity and magnetism as early as 1855/56 when "On Faraday's Lines of Force" was read to the Cambridge Philosophical Society. Maxwell made an analogy between the density of this medium and the magnetic permeability, as well as an analogy between the transverse elasticity and the dielectric constant, and using the results of a prior experiment by Wilhelm Eduard Weber and Rudolf Kohlrausch performed in 1856, he established a connection between the speed of light and the speed of propagation of waves in this medium.
Noretta Koertge is an American philosopher of science noted for her work on Karl Popper and scientific rationality.
Caspar Neumann (or Neuman) (July 11, 1683 – October 20, 1737) was a German chemist and apothecary.
The Langevin family is a French family with some prominent scientists. French physicist Paul Langevin, member of the French Academy of Sciences and teacher at Collège de France, is the most prominent member.
Federico Bonaventura was an Italian nobleman, natural philosopher and humanist. Among his contributions was an Aristotelian view of meteorology, particularly the winds. In a posthumously published work Delle ragion di stato (1623), he examined the role of a secular state.
The Book on the Measurement of Plane and Spherical Figures was the most important of the works produced by the Banū Mūsā. A Latin translation by the 12th century Italian astrologer Gerard of Cremona was made, entitled Liber trium fratrum de geometria and Verba filiorum Moysi filii Sekir. The original work in Arabic was edited by the Persian polymath Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī in the 13th century. The original work in Arabic is not extant, but its contents are known from later translations.