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With the deluge of Einsteiniana that has come out of the recent Einstein year, it was inevitable that the opposition forces would seize the opportunity to ride the tide of renewed interest in the science and persona of Albert Einstein. The American effort under review here comes in five parts. The first is a book-length essay by one of the editors, entitled The Einstein myth: a presentation of evidence for the reality of absolute space and time. It also serves as a 'reader's guide' to the entire volume. Part II, which takes up about half the book, is a collection of scientific papers relevant to relativity, written by the American physicist Herbert Ives (1882-1953), director of electro-optical research at the Bell Laboratories. Parts III to V include writings of Ives and others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviews the book 'Occasional Papers in Irish Science and Technology. 'Stoney and the Electron,' Number 8.

Reviews the book 'The Papers of Joseph Henry: Volume 6, January 1844—December 1846. The Princeton Years,' edited by Marc Rothenberg.

Reviews the book 'The Papers of Joseph Henry. Volume 4. January 1838-December 1840, The Princeton Years,' edited by Nathan Reingold.

Reviews the book 'The Papers of Joseph Henry. Volume 2, November 1832–December 1835: The Princeton Years,' edited by Nathan Reingold.

Reviews the book "How to Write and Illustrate a Scientific Paper," by B. Gustavii.

The article reviews the book "The Discoveries: Great Breakthroughs in 20th Century Science," by Alan Lightman.

Of all the giants of seventeenth-century science (if at least we opt to exclude Thomas Harriot) the Dutch polymath Christiaan Huygens remains possibly the most remote to us three centuries on, even though there exists a comprehensive modern edition of his letters and works, manuscript and printed, in twenty-two thick volumes. In the thirty years since this was completed it has almost been as if the very omni-inclusiveness of that grand example of careful scholarship in the history of exact sciences--no matter that its deficiencies and lacunas become increasingly obvious as both historical learning and historiography progress--has acted as a bar to further study of Huygen's achievement when and where it should have stimulated it. Our own purblindness must be held largely responsible for that. But it is true that (unlike Descartes, Newton or Leibniz for instance) Huygens left behind him no earnest lieutenants, no school or adherents zealous to propagandize his name and surpass his deeds. In our textbooks of history of science he receives but scant notice for having had a viable theory of elastic collision and a notion of centrifugal force, for first formulating a wave theory of light, and (it may be) for discovering Saturn's ring-formation and its largest satellite Titan. And there might also be some statement to the effect that the was a good mathematician of sorts. The present book is composed of the invited papers given at a symposium held at Amsterdam in August 1979 in commemoration of the 350th anniversary of Huygens' birth, to tell the world more--and better truth--about his life and achievement, and securely to place him in his scientific milieu. But the question was also several times raised why he made so little impact upon it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1977 the National Museum of Science and Technology in Stockholm devoted its initial Symposium on the History of Technology to the subject of Technology and its impact on society. A second symposium followed two years later, which yielded this publication. There were five sessions whose titles and chairmen were 'Prehistoric migration', Stuart Piggott; 'Canals', Roger Pilkington; 'The technology of navigation', David W. Waters; 'The bicycle', Stuart Wilson; and 'Extreme transports', Jan Hult. Each of the chairmen presented a paper, and there were 15 more. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The final three essays deal with science and politics. The best of these, by far, are the two case studies by Nowotny and Nelkin. Nowotny argues that traditional methods of scientific risk-assessment are not adaptable to modern technological hazards like those involved in nuclear technology. Nelkin's excellent paper is a study of fundamentalist, sects in the United States and the strategies that they have adopted to refute scientific claims that life arose and developed by naturistic processes and not in the manner described in Genesis. An interesting aspect of Nelkin's work is that she shows that in attacking science the fundamentalists have themselves adopted a scientific manner of style and argumentation. It is, perhaps, a testament to the power of science in our modern socety that even its enemies are forced to adopt the clothing of that which they openly despise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The volume reviewed here contains papers presented at a conference sponsored by Calgary Institute of Humanities in May, 1979. It is representative of the first three of these converging interests. The book is divided into three sections, one philosophical, 'The problem of demarcation', one historical, 'The impact of pseudo-science on the development of science'; and one social, 'Social dimensions of science and pseudo-science'. It consists of eleven papers by authors from the three disciplinary areas, together with introductory and concluding discussion by the philosopher of science, M. W. Wartofsky, and provides a valuable record of the state of the problem area at the end of the 1970s. The historical section, for example, has a clear and closely reasoned paper by R. S. Westfall on the influence of alchemy on Newton's scientific thought, an examination by T. H. Levere of Coleridge's discussion of anthropology, phrenology and mesmerism, and a paper of less general interest by A. B. McKillop on the mid-Victorian Canadian, Sir Daniel Wilson. There are also two papers on the social history of science in the third section, one by J. R. Jacob on Stubbe's attack on the Royal Society, and one by R. Cooter on phrenology. A paper given at the conference by J. and M. Jacob on the Anglican origins of modern science is not included; it was already committed to publication in Isis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1986 a conference on new trends in the history of science was held as part of the celebrations of the 350th anniversary of the University of Utrecht. The papers from this meeting have now been published in an interesting but rather diffuse volume. There are contributions on such topics as sixteenth-century English universities, polarization in the nineteenth century, mathematics in the Third Reich and solar physics since 1945. Most papers are followed with a commentary by a Dutch scholar. One obvious new trend demonstrated in this collection is the extension in the range of subjects now investigated by historians of science. However, significant innovations in approaches and methods are difficult to find. Most authors simply contribute their latest research and even the commentators ignore the issue of new trends. Is this why, despite there being four editors, an introductory review essay is not offered? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While completing a doctoral dissertation in his field of high-temperature, high-pressure mineralogy, Robert M. Hazen, the editor of this collection, with the assistance of Margaret Hindle Hazen put together the Bibliography of American Geological Literature, 1669-1850, containing fifteen thousand references to just about every scrap of material published in the United States with any relationship to the subject. Out of this total familiarity with the literature, he has distilled with taste and understanding, 30 articles or selections published before 1820 and critical to the development of geology in America. This year 1820 marks, Hazen informs us, American geology's date of passage. It was the year the early American geologist Amos Eaton designated as closing the primitive era of American geology. John Greene and John Burke (1978) consider the second edition in 1822 of the textbook by the Bowdoin College mineralogist, Parker Cleaveland, as the achievement by American mineralogy of European standards. These Early Writings are divided into eight sections, with the editor's comments, references and a brief bibliography for each section. This is in addition to the editor's Preface and general introduction with a bibliography of secondary sources. The eight parts are entitled 'Earthquakes', 'Fossils', 'Medical Geology', 'Mineralogy', 'Physics of the Earth', 'Formation and Classification of Rocks', 'Field Geology', and 'American Geology Comes of Age'. They represent the classification of geology of the period, and include at least one paper by every major figure as well as an attempt to republish works from little known and rare sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Michael Frede's essay on the origins of traditional grammar is a superb display of unpretentious erudition. It should remain the classic brief account of the creation of the very concept of grammar that has from time to time played such a central role in Western intellectual life. I t establishes the place of Stoic writers in transmitting and enriching this growing tradition. Frede's paper is a careful marshalling of difficult historical data; at an opposite extreme is John Earman's discussion of Leibnizian space-time. This is a rather brilliant use of sophisticated, present-day algebra to bring out the content of some of Leibniz's tantalizing speculations. On more familiar topics, W. R. Shea considers current opinion on a topic about which so many diverse views have been urged: Galileo's use of experiment and theory. He provides a plausible sketch of a Galileo who is neither all experiment nor all hypothesis. Laurens Laudan describes the varying fortunes of the hypothetic-deductive method itself, particularly emphasizing how it was for a time over-whelmed by inductivism, but rediscovered in the nineteenth century. The writings of speculative scientists provide the origins of modem methodological debates, and Laudan derides philosophers whose theory of science is not based on a close reading of past science and metascience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviews the book 'Science in the Making. Scientific Development as Chronicled by Historic Papers in the 'Philosophical Magazine'-- With Commentaries and Illustrations: 1850-1900,' Vol. 2, edited by E.A. Davis.