Making Molecularism IV. Selected Papers IV-Oeuvres choisies IV

Description

Nineteen years ago Henk Kubbinga’s book L’Histoire du concept de « molécule » was published by Springer-Verlag France (Paris). There followed Dutch and US-English editions in which the emphasis shifted from Antiquity-Middle Ages-Renaissance to more recent times; a German edition is well underway. The message was—and still is—clear: we are witnessing last decades the breakthrough of a new, thoroughly molecular ‘picture of the world’. Molecularism calls the tune. The series Making Molecularism will highlight a collection of difficultly accessible papers that paved the way for its coming of age, with due attention for all mathematics at issue. This fourth volume provides, first, the full text of the as yet unpublished doctoral dissertation with which the molecular odyssey of the author begun (Paris, 1983). It next reproduces twenty-one papers which derive, directly or indirectly, from this dissertation and constituted the core of the 2001 monograph. In these Covid-19 days the study of the roots of epidemiology (Lucretius, Fracastoro) is perhaps the most interesting, but the names of Aristotle, Beeckman, Descartes, Leibniz, Buffon, Boscovich, Comte, Maxwell, Loschmidt, and Perrin also stand for a fascinating read. Europe was the place to be, so much is sure. This volume closes with case studies of the history of crystallography (1800-1912) and the deve-lopment of microscopy (1800-ca.1860), to conclude with two recent ‘Tributes’, the one to Lise Meitner, the other to Max Planck.

Description

This fourth volume specifies more in particular the french papers which came to constitute the core of the monograph L’Histoire du concept de « molécu-le » (2001). There are also more philosophical texts on the consequence of molecularism for the classical debate on determinism and free will, on the one hand, and on the essential role of Europe in its development, on the other. Great teachers (René Taton and Reijer Hooykaas) are honored, as is the souvenir of a colleague (Hélène Metzger). The pictural arts play an interesting role in the scientific contacts between France and the Netherlands, both in history (Escher; Rembrandt and Caravaggio) and in real time (Helmantel). This volume also celebrates, at the invitation of the Int. Union of Crystallography, the centenary of the discovery of the diffraction of Röntgen rays by crystals, in 1912 by Laue et al. Microscopy has a place of its own; physics and the other sciences are omnipresent. In the ‘Preface’ the Brexit-problems are discussed in a broad context, while some recent bizarre developments at Groningen University Library are highlighted. The Reader will also find a sketch of Molecular Ecology as one of the trend-setting branches of contemporary science, where, indeed, molecularism calls the tune.

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