The History of Science as “the History of Rare Fluctuations of Thought and Scientific Work ... like Archimedes and Newton”

The article examines the scientific and biographical approach to the history of science and especially its version, which can be called the method of personification of history. Both methods were proposed by S. I. Vavilov and both are associated with his understanding of the history of science as “a sequence of rare fluctuations of thought and scientific work ... like Archimedes and Newton”. The method of personification of history is illustrated on a number of large-scale fragments of the history of physics of the 19th and 20th centuries. Five cases of such personification are considered. This is, first of all, the case of G. Monge, who personified the science and technology of revolutionary France (analyzed by Vavilov himself). Two casesrefer to two scientific revolutions in physics of the 20th century (to the quantum-relativistic – the case of A. Einstein and to the gauge-field – the case of M. Gell-Mann). And, finally, two cases of personification of the history of Russian physics. In the first, not one, but two essentially opposite key figures of Russian physics on the eve of the scientific revolution are considered: N. A. Umov and P. N. Lebedev. The second case is S. I. Vavilov himself, who in many ways personified the development of Soviet physics in the first half of the 20th century.

New Paradigm and Parametry

Currently, the ongoing paradigm change requires both opening up the main provisions formulated by T. Kuhn and their further development. The article formulates the signs of scientific revolutions and the necessary conditions for their implementation. The history of the new paradigm is given and the periodicity in its emergence is revealed. A conclusion is made about the need to create a new research direction - Parametry. Areas of research are indicated, which scientific results will lead to new scientific revolutions in the foreseeable future.

Bez geniuszów, bez cudów — w kolektywie. Głos w dyskusji nad nową książką Wojciecha Sadego

The paper indicates how an original Fleckian core of Wojciech Sady’s methodology significantly weakens some popular presentations of the history of empirical sciences (especially the so-called scientific revolutions), which are founded on a myth of a ‘lonely genius’ and ‘miraculous ideas’. Sady rightly emphasizes the collective-cognitive character of processes shaping the theoretical breakthroughs in physics, however he unnecessarily contends that there is some determinism behind them. In order to understand their dynamics, one needs the fine-grained historical-sociological analyses concerning the factors which regulate the work of the research collectives (also the early modern ones), but the widespread individualistic myths make that task much harder, even in a field of critical philosophy of science. It is suggested that the Fleckian perspective is also quite crucial in explaining the seemingly paradoxical waves of antiscientific sentiments which are clearly visible in the hypertechnological societies.

Czy Kuhnowska koncepcja rewolucji naukowej adekwatnie opisuje rozwój fizyki? Uwagi na temat monografii Wojciecha Sadego

In this article I argue with Wojciech Sady’s answer to the question whether scientific revolutions in physics (relativistic and quantum) adequately characterize the development of this discipline? I also take issue with Sady’s crirtique of Kuhn’s concept of scientific revolutions by pointing out that it omits significant scientific works that founded the critique of the concept of scientific revolution.

Odpowiedź moim krytykom

In the book The Structure of Relativistic and Quantum Revolutions in Physics, I presented the anti-Kuhnian and anti-Lakatosian model of scientific revolutions. Following Fleck, I assume that scientists’ ways of perceiving phenomena and thinking about them are conditioned by the thought style acquired in the process of being introduced to the profession. So how could it happen that scientists at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries began to think differently than they had been taught to think? My answer is that both revolutions were made by three generations of theorists. In the first generation (Maxwell; Boltzmann), the acquired knowledge and new experimental results led to conclusions that made the theoretical system inconsistent. Scientists of the second generation (Lorentz, Larmor, Poincaré; Planck, Einstein, Bohr) tried to apply these new conclusions together with old knowledge, and it was found that it was impossible to do it fully. Nevertheless, they obtained a number of new results. In the third generation (Einstein; Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Dirac and others), new conclusions began to be applied as standalone. If one were to use the Lakatosian language, some fragments of the protective belt of the old research program broke off as the cores of the new programs. In this article, I answer the objections that several outstanding philosophers of science have made against my model.

The Post-Postmodern Turn: Challenging the Application of Kuhn's Model

The point of departure for this article is the much-debated death of postmodernism, heralded by influential experts on the subject such as Linda Hutcheon or Ihab Hassan at the beginning of the new millennium. Although the academic community as a whole has not agreed with this fact, there was an intense debate during the first years of the twenty-first century that was evidence of a change of attitude towards this cultural phase. With this in mind, the aim of this study is to provide a theoretical framework for the change in order to understand its nature. Analysing the theories developed by Thomas S. Kuhn on paradigm shifts in the field of science and applying them to the context of critical theory at the beginning of the millennium serves to challenge the very idea of postmodernism as a paradigm in the terms developed in Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

Role of Nanoparticles Synthesized from Bacteria as Antimicroorganism: A Review

Nanoparticles are one of the most important technologies of today and the future. This groundbreaking technology is considered a very significant domain among all the fields of science due to its tangible capacity in improving products, treating diseases, serving mankind in all spheres of life, and realizing future scientific revolutions in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, and other sciences. Therefore, it is truly necessary to take advantage of the distinct properties of nanomaterials. Hence, synthesized nanoparticles have been shown to be enjoying anti-proliferating antioxidant, anti-migration, antioagulant and anti-cancer antipathogenic characteristics in the laboratory. Accordingly, this study came to prominence in this field. The biochemical equipment used in nanoparticle bacterial biosynthesis was subsequently proven. Many of these biochemical types of equipment have been used as part of a cellular detoxification resistance mechanism that involves altering inorganic ions solubility by reducing and/or precipitating soluble toxic to insoluble non-toxic nanostructures. Microorganisms, such as bacteria, are used as an environmentally responsible strategy, and an alternative in the method of chemical agents when nanoparticles are synthesized. Extracellular as well as intracellular biocatalytic (including possible excretion) synthesis involves mainly oxidreductase enzymes like NADH dependent reductase nitrate NADPH, NADPH sulphite reductase alfa (NADPH dependent on sulfite reductase) and cells.

PHENOMEN OF THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS MISSED OPPORTUNITIES IN THE FUNDAMENTAL PHYSICS OF THE XXth CENTURY

The phenomenon of missed opportunities in the course of two scientific revolutions in fundamental physics is investigated: in the quantum relativistic revolution of the first third of the 20th century and in the gauge revolution that led to the creation of a standard model in elementary particle physics (1954-1974). Two cases of missed opportunities related to H. Poincare and his role in the history of the creation of the special theory of relativity are examined on the material of the first revolution. Two other cases of missed opportunities concerning A. Einstein in connection with the theory of the expanding Universe and with failed attempts to build a unified field theory based on a geometric field program are also considered. It is shown that in these cases epistemological and metaphysical outlooks of scientists were in many respects the causes of the «omissions». We mean the conventionalism of Poincare, as well as Einstein’s belief in the stationarity of the Universe and in the incredible power of mathematics as the only creative beginning in the construction of the physical theories. Two similar plots are explored on the material of the second revolution. The first story refers to the Young-Mills’ concept of the gauge fields, which played a key role in the creation of standard model. Several theorists came very close to this concept and, above all, V. Pauli, who for various reasons did not make a decisive step and missed opportunities to associate their names with the theory of gauge fields. Pauli believed that, despite its theoretical attraction, it could not overcome experimentally - empirical difficulties. The second story is related to the quantum field program being rejected in 1950-1960s by most theorists in favor of the phenomenological S-matrix program. As a result, many theorists have missed their opportunities to contribute to the creation of a standard model. And this “omission” was partly motivated by the positivist thesis that in theory only fundamentally observable values should appear. It is emphasized also that the phenomenon of missed opportunities opens the way for the study of the problem of alternative history of science.

What’s Forgotten About The Structure of Scientific Revolutions?

Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a classic, and it is certainly not forgotten. However, an essential aspect about it has been neglected. That is, Kuhn’s Structure is a book in philosophy of history in the sense that Structure attempts gives an account of historical events, focuses on the whole of the history of science and stipulates a structure of the history of science to explain historical events. Kuhn’s book and its contribution to the debates about the progress of science and the contingency and inevitability of the history of science shows why and how philosophy of history is relevant for the history and philosophy of science. Its successful integration of historical and philosophical aspects in one account makes it worthwhile reading also for philosophers of history in the twentieth-first century. In particular, it raises the question whether the historical record can justify philosophical views and comprehensive syntheses of the past.