Revisiting the Dazu “Bombard” and the World’s Earliest Representation of a Gun

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-113
Author(s):  
Benjamin Avichai Katz Sinvany
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Research Note ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

Abstract In 1988, Joseph Needham, Lu Gwei-Djen, and Pan Jixing published an article that declared to the world the discovery of the earliest known representation of a bombard, or gun. In the academic literature, however, there is significant doubt about its authenticity as a representation of a gun. Little subsequent evidence beyond the 1988 research note has corroborated their initial findings. This research note will show that the evidence originally presented by Lu, Needham, and Pan to support their argument that the cave in Dazu contains a bombard is inadequate. In doing so, it highlights the challenges researchers of Chinese history and the history of science have faced in the past and suggests ways the field is growing.

scholarly journals Drawing on the Past to Shape the Future of Synthetic Yeast Research

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (19) ◽  
pp. 7156
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Dixon ◽  
Isak S. Pretorius
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Human Society ◽  
The Past ◽  
Environmental Recovery ◽  
Collaborative Innovation ◽  
The World ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
History Of ◽  
Synthetic Genomics ◽  
Global Events

Some years inspire more hindsight reflection and future-gazing than others. This is even more so in 2020 with its evocation of perfect vision and the landmark ring to it. However, no futurist can reliably predict what the world will look like the next time that a year’s first two digits will match the second two digits—a numerical pattern that only occurs once in a century. As we leap into a new decade, amid uncertainties triggered by unforeseen global events—such as the outbreak of a worldwide pandemic, the accompanying economic hardship, and intensifying geopolitical tensions—it is important to note the blistering pace of 21st century technological developments indicate that while hindsight might be 20/20, foresight is 50/50. The history of science shows us that imaginative ideas, research excellence, and collaborative innovation can, for example, significantly contribute to the economic, cultural, social, and environmental recovery of a post-COVID-19 world. This article reflects on a history of yeast research to indicate the potential that arises from advances in science, and how this can contribute to the ongoing recovery and development of human society. Future breakthroughs in synthetic genomics are likely to unlock new avenues of impactful discoveries and solutions to some of the world’s greatest challenges.

James Chadwick and the atomic bomb

1993 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-92 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Atomic Bomb ◽  
Good Discrimination ◽  
Cavendish Laboratory ◽  
The Past ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Century Science ◽  
20Th Century Science

One of the pleasures of the centenary in 1991 of James Chadwick’s birth was the growing interest in him, not only among the people who knew him but also among younger scientists and scholars in the history of 20th-century science; several are planning books and articles. This shows good discrimination within the history of science profession. Of course Chadwick’s name is known to the world of science as that of a marvellous physicist, in particular as the discoverer of the neutron; but in the past it never became as generally familiar nor as publicly honoured as, say, Cockcroft’s. The planning by the Cavendish Laboratory and Caius College of the celebration at Cambridge of his centenary was evidence that his true status in all its dimensions is increasingly appreciated.

Henry William Robinson

1961 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-246
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Scientific Instruments ◽  
The Past ◽  
Recent Memory ◽  
The North ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

For frequenters of the library of the Royal Society it is still hard to get accustomed to the absence o f M r H. W . Robinson, who was for so long not only a familiar and friendly figure to all readers, but was a man to whom seekers turned instinctively for information about less familiar records bearing on the history of science, especially those in which the Royal Society was concerned. He was an unrivalled expert on matters contained in the Society’s extensive archives, which were within recent memory not so well catalogued and classified as they are today, thanks to the labours o f Mr Kaye and his collaborators. He had a rare knowledge, the fruit of years o f study, o f the whereabouts of scarce books, documents and manuscripts bearing on particular aspects o f the science of the past, o f delineations of scientific instruments and of portraits of men o f science, and this knowledge he was always delighted to place at the disposal of serious enquirers. Scholars in all parts of the world have in their publications acknowledged with gratitude their indebtedness to him for recondite information gladly furnished. Henry William Robinson was born on 23 March 1888, in W ood Green, a pleasant suburb in the north of London, and throughout his life he was closely associated with the social life of the neighbourhood.

Reframing the Sciences of the Long Eighteenth Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 58-66
Author(s):  
Giuliano Pancaldi
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Science Policy ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
Past Half

Here I survey a sample of the essays and reviews on the sciences of the long eighteenth century published in this journal since it was founded in 1969. The connecting thread is some historiographic reflections on the role that disciplines—in both the sciences we study and the fields we practice—have played in the development of the history of science over the past half century. I argue that, as far as disciplines are concerned, we now find ourselves a bit closer to a situation described in our studies of the long eighteenth century than we were fifty years ago. This should both favor our understanding of that period and, hopefully, make the historical studies that explore it more relevant to present-day developments and science policy. This essay is part of a special issue entitled “Looking Backward, Looking Forward: HSNS at 50,” edited by Erika Lorraine Milam.

History of Tour de France from the Geographical Point of View

2013 ◽  
Vol 22 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 255-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimír Bačík ◽  
Michal Klobučník
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
The Past ◽  
Advanced Technologies ◽  
The World ◽  
Spatial Dimensions ◽  
Tour De France ◽  
Wide Circle ◽  
History Of ◽  
Expert Community ◽  
Geographical Point

Abstract The Tour de France, a three week bicycle race has a unique place in the world of sports. The 100th edition of the event took place in 2013. In the past of 110 years of its history, people noticed unique stories and duels in particular periods, celebrities that became legends that the world of sports will never forget. Also many places where the races unfolded made history in the Tour de France. In this article we tried to point out the spatial context of this event using advanced technologies for distribution of historical facts over the Internet. The Introduction briefly displays the attendance of a particular stage based on a regional point of view. The main topic deals with selected historical aspects of difficult ascents which every year decide the winner of Tour de France, and also attract fans from all over the world. In the final stage of the research, the distribution of results on the website available to a wide circle of fans of this sports event played a very significant part (www.tdfrance.eu). Using advanced methods and procedures we have tried to capture the historical and spatial dimensions of Tour de France in its general form and thus offering a new view of this unique sports event not only to the expert community, but for the general public as well.

A Long, Long Way

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greg Garrett
Keyword(s):  
People Of Color ◽  
Racial Reconciliation ◽  
Cultural Narratives ◽  
Truth Telling ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Hollywood Films ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Race And Culture

Hollywood films are perhaps the most powerful storytellers in American history, and their depiction of race and culture has helped to shape the way people around the world respond to race and prejudice. Over the past one hundred years, films have moved from the radically prejudiced views of people of color to the depiction of people of color by writers and filmmakers from within those cultures. In the process, we begin to see how films have depicted negative versions of people outside the white mainstream, and how film might become a vehicle for racial reconciliation. Religious traditions offer powerful correctives to our cultural narratives, and this work incorporates both narrative truth-telling and religious truth-telling as we consider race and film and work toward reconciliation. By exploring the hundred-year period from The Birth of a Nation to Get Out, this work acknowledges the racist history of America and offers the possibility of hope for the future.

A Long Stagnation, or Capitalism without Growth

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louçã Francisco ◽  
Ash Michael
Keyword(s):  
Great Recession ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Economic Stability ◽  
Secular Stagnation ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Growth Prospects

Chapter 11 assesses the growth prospects of the world economy. The history of global economic doomsaying is traced briefly, a frequently reasonable position that has not done well with the facts for the past hundred years. Capitalism has been adept at escaping from the pit and pendulum. A set of global imbalances is then reviewed that are seen as posing a severe threat to global economic stability and certainly to the prospects for sustainable and equitable growth. The Great Recession following the Crash of 2007–8 might be “different this time.” Historical and contemporary fears of “secular stagnation” are discussed but the speculative nature of stagnationist assessments is acknowledged.

Camus's Absurd and the World of Melville's Confidence-Man

PMLA ◽  
1967 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-27
Author(s):  
Leon F. Seltzer
Keyword(s):  
Careful Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
Confidence Man ◽  
Ugly Duckling ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

In recent years, The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, a difficult work and for long an unjustly neglected one, has begun to command increasingly greater critical attention and esteem. As more than one contemporary writer has noted, the verdict of the late Richard Chase in 1949, that the novel represents Melville's “second best achievement,” has served to prompt many to undertake a second reading (or at least a first) of the book. Before this time, the novel had traditionally been the one Melville readers have shied away from—as overly discursive, too rambling altogether, on the one hand, or as an unfortunate outgrowth of the author's morbidity on the other. Elizabeth Foster, in the admirably comprehensive introduction to her valuable edition of The Confidence-Man (1954), systematically traces the history of the book's reputation and observes that even with the Melville renaissance of the twenties, the work stands as the last piece of the author's fiction to be redeemed. Only lately, she comments, has it ceased to be regarded as “the ugly duckling” of Melville's creations. But recognition does not imply agreement, and it should not be thought that in the past fifteen years critics have reached any sort of unanimity on the novel's content. Since Mr. Chase's study, which approached the puzzling work as a satire on the American spirit—or, more specifically, as an attack on the liberalism of the day—and which speculated upon the novel's controlling folk and mythic figures, other critics, by now ready to assume that the book repaid careful analysis, have read the work in a variety of ways. It has been treated, among other things, as a religious allegory, as a philosophic satire on optimism, and as a Shandian comedy. One critic has conveniently summarized the prevailing situation by remarking that “the literary, philosophical, and cultural materials in this book are fused in so enigmatic a fashion that its interpreters have differed as to what the book is really about.”

The Rise of Behavioral Economics: A Quantitative Assessment

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 555-583 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niels Geiger
Keyword(s):  
Behavioral Economics ◽  
Quantitative Assessment ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
The Past ◽  
Short Summary ◽  
History Of ◽  
Research Goal

This article is devoted to the issue of operationalizing and empirically measuring the development of behavioral economics, focusing on trends in the academic literature. The main research goal is to provide a quantitative, bibliometric assessment to answer the question of whether the relative importance of behavioral economics has increased over the past decades. After an introduction and a short summary of the history of behavioral economics, several studies are laid out and evaluated. The results generally provide a quantitative confirmation of the story of a rise of behavioral economics that can be found in the literature, and add some notable additional insights.

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