Twentieth-century Science Research Articles

Translating the Past and Imagining the Future(s)

Abstract Middle English literature has not traditionally been a focus for ecocriticism, with the exception of a few texts — such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight — that lend themselves to this conversation due to their wilderness settings and the contrasts they make between nature and human culture. Nonetheless, ecocritical readings of Middle English texts have the potential to provide undergraduate students with new perspectives and tools for their own environmental ethics — and even activism. This article suggests assigning medieval readings alongside more accessible twentieth-century science fiction that shares some of the former's formal traits, specifically concatenation (interlinked series) and adubbement (abundant ornamentation). This alignment of new and old texts, combined with a teaching strategy that incorporates close reading, translation, and adaptation, helps students read difficult Middle English texts ecocritically and then employ similar strategies in their own thinking about the environment. Studying a literary text is not entirely different from “reading” the material environment — and thus one is good practice for the other. Medieval poetic structures can teach students about reading and navigating complex ecological spaces and human entanglements with them.

The social agency of instruments of surveying and exploration c.1830–1930

ABSTRACT This paper utilizes the concept of the agency of material objects, proposed as a tenet by several historians of science in the late twentieth century. It argues that scientific instruments have agency in the field due to their value and fragility, both of which attributes served to dictate a social hierarchy of activity. Furthermore, the resulting numerical outputs served to discriminate between various groups. The principal focus is the role of instruments used by travellers sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society, London, but it also looks at the role of instruments on a larger triangulation; the project to survey the African part of the arc of the 30th meridian east of Greenwich. Seeing the instruments as material objects allows insights into the social arrangements and interactions taking place. It is argued that instruments, and the results of instrument use, entrenched existing power hierarchies, imparting greater prestige to those who were previously endowed with privilege. It is argued the instruments contributed to ‘othering’ both in the field and in the publications resulting from the expeditions.

We create the Universe: artists and scientists take on the Big Bang

Between October 2021 and January 2022 an ambitious combined art and science exhibition presented a unique object-rich cosmological story at the University Library of Leuven, Belgium, as part of the Kunst Leuven KNAL! City Festival 2021 (English: BANG! Big Bang City Festival). To the Edge of Time was a transdisciplinary[1] introduction for general audiences to one of the most famous and complex developments in science, the Big Bang theory. The exhibition presented artworks and science objects as equal partners that through curatorial placement and interpretation could fluidly convey key theoretical moments, materials, philosophical perspectives and ideas. The scientific story focused on how the groundbreaking work of the Belgian priest-astronomer Georges Lemaître bridged the insights of two of the twentieth century’s other leading European scientists, German physicist Albert Einstein and the British cosmologist Stephen Hawking. Objects from their lives and archives revealed their specific ideas and processes of thinking and discovery. Artworks from leading international artists brought new material, critical and conceptual dimensions and multisensory encounters. The exhibition was the result of a curatorial collaboration between the author, British contemporary art and transdisciplinary curator Hannah Redler-Hawes, and Belgian cosmologist and former collaborator of Stephen Hawking, Professor Thomas Hertog, of KU Leuven. As guest curators, they worked with Annelies Vogels, Exhibition Coordinator of the university and Wouter Daenen of KU Leuven Libraries, and others to form a closely collaborating curatorial team. To the Edge of Time was not only the first exhibition worldwide to explore Lemaître’s work through a transdisciplinary narrative, but also to place Stephen Hawking’s work in a broader historical context. In the trans- and interdisciplinary exhibition field, where new commissions and collaborations between living artists and scientists have been increasing, it was somewhat unusual for a cosmology exhibition in its reliance on material culture, concentration on historical art and science objects and its combining of these with presentations of recent contemporary art and advanced theoretical physics concepts. These combinations helped to convey parallel movements of thought where neither the art nor the science were presented as derivative to each other, a key curatorial ambition. This practice-based paper, offering Redler-Hawes’s personal reflections, discusses how the narrative evolved to define a shared language between the contributors. It considers, through a narrated walk-through of key object-artwork ‘constellations’, how the presentation generated new insights into different methods of enquiry, knowledge acquisition and making sense of our place in the cosmos, by bringing major themes in twentieth century science into dialogue with international artists working independently and in collaboration with science during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.[2] Note: Where images belong to the Science Museum Group this Journal shares them under a fully open access CC-BY licence (see our Open Access statement here https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/about-the-journal/). Where the image or work belong to a third party, this is indicated in the credit in the caption and full rights belong to the indicated party.

Insulina i upadek wieży z kości słoniowej. Rzecz o zmieniających się uwarunkowaniach innowacyjności

Insulin and a fall of the ivory tower. On the changing determinants of innovation The centennial of the discovery of insulin and the fortieth anniversary of the introduction of human insulin into the American market provide a good opportunity to reflect on the circumstances surrounding innovation in high technology branches of industry. The subject of that reflection is the possibility of applying the model of technical, organisational and institutional co-evolution, formulated by Johan Peter Murmann in relation to the artificial dyes industry in nineteenth-century Germany, United Kingdom and United States, to the history of the pharmaceutical industry. An analysis of the evolution of relations between scientists and physicians on the one hand and the pharmaceutical industry on the other leads to the conclusion that the Murmann model must be supplemented with reflection on changes in the role of medical codes of ethics and on the understanding of the social role of science. The achievement of the current status quo in the cooperation between the medical profession and the industry has been possible thanks to the liberalisation of the principles of ethical codes, which have been transformed from a set of strict standards into just a set of guidelines to help physicians in their everyday practice. On the other hand, the industry has gradually adapted its marketing strategies to the requirements of physicians by divulging the composition of medicines, abandoning direct advertising to patients and introducing a new strategy known as scientific marketing. As far as scientists are concerned, the consent to the commercialisation of research results was the consequence of a change in the understanding of the social role of science. In the twentieth century science became one of the many professions pursued to earn a living and scientists no longer came to regard themselves as a special group selflessly explaining the rules of the natural world. It is unfair to blame biotechnology for this shift, as the processes of “disenchantment” of science were well under way before biotechnology was born in the mid-1970s.

The Robot and Human Futures: Visualising Autonomy in Law and Science Fiction

This article argues that legal discourses about robots are framed within a limiting ‘human paradigm.’ While this is not a specific failure of lawyers, it has significant consequences for law in a digital future. This visualising of robots has its origins in mainstream twentieth-century science fictional tropes of artificial beings. This article begins by identifying the predominant science fiction tropes regarding artificial beings as a source of anxiety for human futures, as located in discrete bodies and as separate from humans. The article then traces this ‘human paradigm’ in robot law scholarship. It is shown how a focus on embodiment and separation disrupts appreciation of the emerging partial disembodiment and hybridity of digital autonomy. There is a continual sense of needing to keep robots and humans distinct and separate, which is not how digital futures are manifesting.

The God of Chance and Purpose: Divine Involvement in a Secular Evolutionary World

The God of Chance and Purpose: Divine Involvement in a Secular Evolutionary World

A history of anti-racism in scienceThe Remnants of Race Science Sebastián Gil-Riaño Columbia University Press, 2023. 392 pp.

Twentieth-century scientists were imperfect diversity advocates in the Global South.

Anticipating Illness: The Illusion of Health in Knock ou Le Triomphe de la Médicine

Abstract: Knock ou Le Triomphe de la Médicine [ Knock, or the Triumph of Medicine ] (1923) is a satirical play by Jules Romains parodying the hierarchical power relationship between patient and doctor and the supposed infallibility of science in the early twentieth century. Drawing on the phenomenological work of German physician Herbert Plügge (1970), I argue that the play exploits the physical interconnections between the healthy body and the sick body to present health as a deceptive state of hidden or imminent illness. By anticipating illness, the play shatters the illusion of health in ways that are ethically, psychosocially, and biomedically salient.

Inventing Tomorrow: H.G. Wells and the Twentieth Century by Sarah Cole

<i>Inventing Tomorrow: H.G. Wells and the Twentieth Century</i> by Sarah Cole

Ecological Recentering in William Gibson’s The Peripheral

William Gibson’s response to the rise of computing established him as a pioneering voice in twentieth-century science fiction, his finger not just on but shaping the pulse of his time. Gibson’s novel The Peripheral (2014) is no different. It responds to current, rising anxieties pertaining to climate change, shifting from his earlier ecoperipheral cyberpunk purview to a more holistic one, in which ecology is at least as much at the forefront of the future as is technology. This article draws on and expands Bakhtin’s chronotope to investigate how Gibson uses ecological time, particularly plant time, to reorient the trajectory of future imaginings. In doing so, he enmeshes that which had previously been relegated to the margins in his work, both socially and environmentally.

Underselling Hawking

Stephen Hawking was an icon of twentieth-century science, renowned for his contributions to physics and his battle against motor neuron disease. But four years after his death, Charles Seife painted a different picture in Hawking Hawking, a biography portraying Hawking as a second-rate physicist who manipulated media for his own fame. Hawking’s student Bernard Carr shares his counter-perspective.

ГЕНЕЗИС РЕГИОНАЛЬНО-СРЕДОВОГО ПОДХОДА В РОССИЙСКОЙ ИСТОРИКО-ПЕДАГОГИЧЕСКОЙ НАУКЕ

The purpose of the article is to reveal the content of the regional-environmental approach and to characterize its genesis in the advanced Russian social thought and historical and pedagogical science. The definition of the approach is given and the process of its development over the past two and a half centuries is described in detail. The following scientific methods were used in the course of the study: diachronization (periodization), retrospective analysis, reconstruction of historical events, actualization and historical-typological, as well as axiological methodological approach, which allows to identify the value content of the subject under study. These scientific tools were implemented in the course of characterizing the views of leading Russian thinkers of the XVIII-XIX centuries (V. V. Krestinin, A. I. Herzen, N. A. Dobrolyubov, N. G. Chernyshevsky, N. H. Wessel, K. D. Ushinsky, D. D. Semenov, etc.) and twentieth-century scientists and educators (B. V. Vsesvyatsky, G. N. Volkov, A. I. Kondakov, etc.) on this issue. The article provides material on the activities of various organizations (provincial statistical committees, scientific archival commissions, etc.) and individuals — local historians, teachers and patrons of different eras (N. M. Meyer, P. K. Meyer, A. I. Veshtomov, T. T. Rapinov, V. I. Fedyaev, etc.), who contributed to the implementation of the regional-environmental approach in educational practice with their theoretical and practical deeds. The conclusion is made about the socio-political significance and scientific and pedagogical relevance of a consistent, scientifically formulated study of the regional-environmental approach in the theory and history of pedagogy. Permanent changes in the regional educational environment and society as a whole make it socially necessary and socially significant for pedagogic theorists to comprehend constantly the complex of problems related to regional educational topics and, in particular, to determine the role and disclosure of the content of the regional environmental approach in the history of education, including the present time.

Quantum memory and manipulation based on erbium doped crystals

Quantum information is a rapidly emerging field aiming at combining two of the greatest advances in science and technology of the twentieth century, that is, quantum mechanics and information science. To reliably generate, store, process, and transmit quantum information, diverse systems have been studied. While for specific tasks some of these systems are more suitable than others, no single system can meet all envisioned demands. Erbium doped crystal has optical transition at 1.5 μm and possesses long optical coherence time and spin coherence time, and thus is one of the best candidates in building several essential blocks for quantum information applications. In this review, we summarize the applications of erbium doped crystals in quantum memories, quantum transducers, quantum sources, and quantum manipulations based on erbium-erbium interactions. Finally, the outlooks for near term prospects of the mentioned topics are also given.

Priest, Philosopher, and Theologian Pavel Florensky in the Perception of Generations (in the Russian Emigration and Russia)

The article discusses some works on priest Pavel Florensky’s philosophical and theological legacy of the 1930s–2020s. The author of the article has examined changes in the perception of Florensky and his ideas among Russian émigré philosophers as well as in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. The difference in such assessments is clearly visible in two reviews of 1930 of the priest’s book called The Pillar and Ground of the Truth. The review written by G.V. Florovsky has a critical bias, while that of V.N. Ilyin is very positive. We find a more comprehensive expression of Ilyin’s attitude to Florensky in the article Father Pavel Florensky. The Silenced Great Miracle of Twentieth Century Science (1969). The works published in the Russian emigration are characterized by subjectivity due to lack of sources, as most of Florensky’s works remained unpublished. In Soviet Russia, one of the most famous works about Florensky was S.S. Khoruzhy’s book named Florensky’s World View (1999). In this book, Father Pavel’s worldview was reconstructed from the perspective of “existential” experience. S.M. Polovinkin gave another, “personalistic” interpretation in his book Christian Personalism of Priest Pavel Florensky (2015). Hegumen Andronik (Trubachev) was the first to highlight the significance of anthropodicy and its connection with theodicy in his work Theodicy and Anthropodicy in Priest Pavel Florensky’s Works (1998). He presented Florensky’s worldview as a system of concrete metaphysics, combining theodicy and anthropodicy. Moreover, he refuted the popular misconception of Florensky’s philosophy as “the allunity metaphysics.” Further, Hegumen Andronik wrote a fundamental work on Florensky’s life and works that he named The Way to God (2012–2020). The present article states that Hegumen Andronik’s work trailed the path to objective research, overcoming the inertia of thought that arose from bias and lack of sources.

Martin David Kamen (1913-2002): discoverer of carbon 14, and of new cytochromes in photosynthetic bacteria.

Martin Kamen was a giant of twentieth century science. Trained as a physical chemist, he was the co-discoverer of radioactive Carbon 14, which has transformed many areas of science as a tracer and as a way to date artifacts. He later switched to the study of metabolism and biochemistry and made important contributions to the understanding of nitrogen fixation and photosynthesis. Finally, he studied cytochromes, primarily from anoxygenic photosynthetic bacteria.

Between Empire, Periphery, and the United States of America: the local and international origins of the Melbourne Social Survey (1941–1943)

This article sets out to test competing characterisations of early Australian social research through an explication of the origins of Australia’s first major social survey, the Melbourne Social Survey (1941–1943), and its historical retelling. It asks to what extent international social survey models, figures, intellectual approaches and finances shaped the survey, and what this reveals about the degree to which early Australian social research was defined by its position of global marginality. This article finds that histories of the survey have overestimated the influence of British survey models and intellectual traditions by paying disproportionate attention to its director from 1941, Wilfred Prest. It argues that a much more powerful inspiration for the social survey, and a new social research direction at Melbourne, can be seen in a trip to the United States of America taken by University of Melbourne Dean of Commerce, Douglas Copland, in 1926 and 1927. Planners of the Melbourne Social Survey were sure it would be ‘of major social significance’. Today, the story of the survey and its historical representation illuminates shifting forces that shaped early Australian social research, and contributes to ongoing debate about the way twentieth-century social science knowledge has been circulated globally.

«Право на дерево життя»: у контексті проекції на соматичні права людини, конституціоналізм та ноосферизм

The aim of the article is to present the results of the analysis of scientific data studied in accordance with the methods of trasology and according to Popper’s criterion, which reveal the natural and legal essence of the artifact «tree of life», the concept of «[human] right to the of life» and establish: 1) which global ecological object in the geosphere system with its eozoic – functional characteristics – corresponds to the idea of the tree of and its natural and legal role in the emergence of life and man on Earth in the process of phylogeny; 2) why uncontrolled interference in human phylogeny at the level of somatic modification of natural cognitive functions of individuals through the implantation of electronic chips in the human brain and the creation of psychosomatic chimeras is unacceptable. The scientific novelty of the study is to study the situation in the context of legal globalization, formation and development of the principles of constitutionalism and noosphere, the implementation of the fourth generation of human rights, when an important task for the state is comprehensive protection of biological human rights – especially somatic, psychosomatic and cognitive rights. rapid development of technologies that allow using microelectronic modems (chips) to adjust the cognitive functions of the human brain and, in the foreseeable future, to carry out procedures for implantation, transplantation and teleportation of the individual, objectively requires a special regulatory framework to regulate this type of activity, its support and provision. Conclusions. The rapid development of technologies that allow using microelectronic modems (chips) to adjust the cognitive functions of the human brain and, in the foreseeable future, to carry out procedures for implantation, transplantation and teleportation of the individual is particularly dangerous for the natural process of human phylogeny – anthropogenesis,technological collapse there is a threat of general cognitive degradation of mankind – the destruction of the world civilization system. Thus, the informal geo- and bioenergetic unity of Nature and Man, which was formed naturally in the process of the emergence of living matter from inanimate matter and subsequent anthropogenesis, will be in danger of potential destruction. In this situation, it is necessary to turn to the historical roots of international human rights law, which were formed in accordance with the biblical notions of «[man’s] right to the of life», as well as the scientific heritage of great twentieth-century scientists Vladimir Vernadsky and Teilhard de Chardin. in order to develop methods of preventive legal management of human phylogeny – anthropogenesis.

Scientists under Surveillance: The FBI Files

Scientists under Surveillance: The FBI Files

Critique of Flowers: The Exigency of Life in the Era of Its Technical Reproducibility

Abstract Need, as an epigenetic concept, originated with Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, for whom it referred to the pressure of circumstances that compel animals to develop new organs in the course of evolution. It reappeared in twentieth-century science as the somatic disequilibrium that Sigmund Freud, following Psycho-Lamarckian biologists, first called “the need of life” (die Not des Lebens) and then “the drives” (Trieb). The invention of time-lapse cinematography around 1900, initially as an optical instrument in the experimental study of plant physiology, visibly enlarged the epigenetic paradigm: Plants were suddenly perceived as agential beings, attached to the physical environment not by their roots, but rather by their needs and activities. The disquieting impression of responsive behavior became the selling point of the BASF-commissioned nitrogen-fertilizer commercial Miracle of Flowers (1926), a film celebrated by Rudolf Arnheim as “the most fantastic, thrilling, and beautiful picture ever made.” This article interrogates the sovereignty of need in epigenesis, using Miracle of Flowers as a case study. Through a close reading of the animal-like organisms in this film and the emotional reactions they elicited, need is reimagined as a maladaptive force embodied in technical media that tethers unhappy individuals to punishing environments.

“The Sleeping Beauty of the Brain”: Memory, MIT, Montreal, and the Origins of Neuroscience

This essay traces the simultaneous development of two distinct efforts to unify the brain sciences in the twentieth century—one originating at the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) and the other at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Both efforts coalesced around investigations of memory but displayed profoundly different disciplinary styles. At the MNI, investigations of memory loss in surgical patients crystallized a form of brain research that eventually became the paradigm of interdisciplinarity for the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO). At MIT, meanwhile, the biophysicist Francis Schmitt aimed to transcend the different brain and mind sciences by discovering a “memory molecule” akin to DNA—this became the basis for his Neurosciences Research Program (NRP). While both organizations failed to achieve the unification they desired, IBRO and the NRP did achieve a social unification of the brain sciences in the 1960s. IBRO established much of the social capital for the Society for Neuroscience, and the NRP promoted the possibilities of a new transdisciplinary “neuroscience.” Beyond reframing the history of modern neuroscience, the story of the MNI/IBRO, the NRP, and the problem of memory can help us to examine different and contrasting approaches to “interdisciplinarity” in twentieth-century science.