Reviews for The quiet revolution

The average rating for The quiet revolution based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-08-30 00:00:00 Wolfgang Lewioda A. Summary: The title of this book consists of three entities: a quiet revolution, a man named Hermann Kolbe, and the science of organic chemistry. 1. Quiet revolution describes a series of changes in chemical science during the 1850s which centered on reforms of atomic weights, molecular formulas, and on the subdiscipline of organic chemistry. A sharp rise in chemists, students, journals, etc. after 1850 all indicate that something happened at this time. There was also a dramatic rise in the known chemical compounds. This is where organic chemistry comes in because nearly all of the compounds were organic. Structure theory (the ability to discern the internal arrangements of atoms within molecules) played an extremely important part in this increase. This was a "quiet" revolution because most of these changes were unnoticed. 2. Hermann Kolbe is used as a vehicle in which to understand this revolution, the last major transition to modern chemistry. Kolbe was the most outstanding and successful German chemists during this period. There were two main points to his involvement. The first was the scientific events described above. The second was institutional and pedagogical in nature. This was exemplified by the tremendous growth in academic laboratories (from 20 student workers to 130 at Kolbe's lab). One of the irony's is that most of the collegial community believed Kolbe helped establish modern structural theory, he believed himself to be one of the last great classical chemists. At the end of his life (mental illness included) he opposed the essential principles of modern chemistry. 3. Approach: "It is only by such a combination of individual attention and contextual sweep (Britain, France, and Germany) that any biographical account becomes coherent and meaningful." 4. Rocke does not like Kolbe as a person. Rocke has great admiration for structuralist theory and Kolbe was one of its chief opponents. B. Themes: 1. Scientific controversy. This was a quiet revolution in part because there was little controversy and a major change in science occurred relatively quickly. The reason that there was so little controversy was because of the empirical evidence was so overwhelming. This is Rocke's argument against social constructivism. He is not arguing for a return to internalism though. He is arguing for a flexibility, eclectic, or pluralism of approaches. Social and cultural forces as well as ideas and evidence are both determinate of results. 2. Psychological and social factors in the context of discovery. The most salient aspect of Kolbe's career was his own destruction. Here was the dramatic fall from a major figure in science. What is atypical about Kolbe was his continued work in the field after his mental facilities declined. Social causes of this include his simple rural background as compared to his urban contemporaries, and his religious beliefs as compared with his materialistic and agnostic peers. Psychologically there were pathological elements to his demise. 3. Generational change in scientific methodology. Kolbe's birth year (1818) distinguishes between the non-structuralists and the structuralists (the former were born prior to 1818). So we see both a pro-structural and a pro-theoretical shift after Kolbe. Kolbe himself was anti-structural and pro-theoretical (which was atypical of his peer group).

Review # 2 was written on 2016-09-02 00:00:00 Dante Jackson يقدم لنا غراهام ريتشاردز كتابا صغيرا يتحدث عن بعض استخدامات الكيمياء و تاريخها كما يستعرض جانبا فيزيائيا و بيولوجيا صعبا من الكيمياء.