Science and Technology in the Modern World: C 1789 — 1960

Professor Olson        
olson@hmc.edu                  
http://newmedia.cgu.edu/olson/

MW 1:00-2:30 PM, Beckman 126
Office: Parsons 1257 
Campus phone #: x7 4476

General Goals:

To learn more about the conceptual and social natures of modern science and technology by exploring their historical development.  Special emphasis will be placed this semester on three major themes:

• What are the conditions favoring or working against major changes (revolutions?) in scientific paradigms and /or technological systems?
• What roles have scientific theories and institutions and technological developments played in promoting (or liberating us from) sexism, racism and economic inequalities (i.e., how do scientific and technological developments serve ideological ends)?  and,
• What have been the relationships between science and technology during most of the period from the French Revolution to the Cold War era.

Course Requirements and Basis for Grading:

Quizzes (25%):  There will be 4 short quizzes during the semester.  The best 3 of 4 quizzes will be selected as the basis for 25% of the Grade in the course.

Reviews of STS-Related Conferences/Colloquia (10%):  Throughout the semester, there will be several conferences or colloquia relating to topics in STS (Science, Technology & Society). Students will write a two or three page review of a colloquium or a single session from one of the conferences to be the basis for 10% of the grade. (Many departmental colloquia have an STS theme, so they might be used for the review, but you must obtain approval for a specific colloquium in advance.).  Reviews should contain a brief statement of the major point(s) the speaker(s) were trying to make and an evaluation of how successfully they made their case(s).

Conference/Colloquium Reviews should be turned in within one week after event. They will be accepted later, but may have the grade lowered by 1/3 grade per week.
 
Pre-approved STS conferences include the January 14, HMC  50th Anniversary conference, The Future of Engineering, Science, and Mathematics: Who Will Lead?

Written Responses to Readings (15%):  To encourage students to read materials in a timely fashion, I am asking for (100 word minimum) responses to the reading for each meeting to be sent to olson@hmc.edu by 10:30 A.M. on the day the reading is due.  Responses should do one of three  things: (I) indicate the most important thing you learned from the reading, explaining why it seemed important and  indicate the most important question the reading raised without answering; (ii) disagree with some point made by the author and explain why we should take seriously your disagreement; or (iv) relate something in the reading to an issue in your current life.  Responses will be graded on a two point scale: zero (0) points for no response or one that shows virtually no effort to grapple with the material; 1 point for a response that shows any reasonable attempt to understand the subject matter; and 2 points for a thoughtful, thought-provoking response.  To calculate this portion of the grade, I will average the best 15 responses (about 70% of the total), so in theory, you can get a perfect grade while skipping about 30% of the reading.  An average of less than 1.0 points will received zero (0) credit for this portion of the grade; 1.0-1.33 points will get a C; 1.34-1.66 points will get a B; and greater than 1.66 points will get an A.
 
Research Paper (25%):  Each student will write one 7-10 page paper on a topic of his/her choice approved by the instructor.  This paper will be due on April 10, and will constitute the basis for about 25% of the grade.

Final Examination (25%): There will be a 3 hour timed take home final examination based on a set of study questions handed out at he beginning of the course.  It will be handed out on the last day of class and will due by 5:00 p-.m.  May 8, except for seniors.  Seniors may elect to ytake the grade that they have going in to the final or they may take the final and turn it in by 5:00 p.m., May 4.  Students may form study groups to prepare for the final, but the exam must be taken, closed book, closed notes, open mind, individually in a single 3 hour session.

Discussion Participation & Attendance: The instructor may raise or lower your grade by 1/3 of a grade (i.e., by a plus or minus) if he judges your contributions to in-class discussions to be unusually substantial or unusually negligible.

Recommended Book Purchases:
The following have been ordered through Huntley Bookstore. Major portions of each will be used during the semester roughly in the order listed:

• Peter Bowler and Iwan Rhys Morus, Making Modern Science;
• A.S. Weber, 19th Century Science: An Anthology;
• Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man;
• Jeff Hughes, The Manhattan Project;
• James Watson, The Double Helix.

In addition, several common readings will be collected in a course packet for sale in the Humanities and Social Sciences Department Office in Parsons and placed on reserve at Sprague Library under “History 82".

Web Resources:  Most valuable Web sites related to this class can be located through one of two major sites:

History of Science on the World Wide Web, http://www.ou.edu/cas/hsci/rel-site.htm
STS Links, http://www2.ncsu.edu/ncsu/chass/mds/stslinks.html
 
Important Dates:

• Quiz # 1: February 13  
• Quiz # 2: March 1  
• Quiz # 3: March 27 
• Paper due: April 10 
• Quiz # 4: April 26
• HMC Presentation Days: May  1-3  
• Final Examination Due: Seniors, May 4 / Others, May 8

Schedule of Topics and Readings:
The following schedule is provisional. It suggests topics for each meeting and coordinates readings with lecture-discussion topics.  The Sources of Additional Perspectives sections are for those who might want to follow up special lines of interest and for use in getting started on paper topics.  Please do the readings before the class session for which they are appropriate if you possibly can. NOTE:  The readings for this course will average 100.3  pp./week, although the reading  schedule is uneven, with the heaviest reading week being 210  pages, and the lightest week, 12.

Introductory Matters

Meeting 1 — January 18:
Introduction to perspectives in the history of science and to the character and organization of the course.  What are Science and Technology?  Why should we care about definitions?

Common Readings:
Bowler and Morus, Making Modern Science,  pp. 1-20. (No writeup due)

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

Students with no previous exposure to the history of science might be interested in looking at some short essays defining the scope of the field.  Of these, T.H. Kuhn's "History of Science" in the most recent Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences is beautifully clear and concise.  Slightly more complex and comprehensive is John Christie’s “The Development of the Historiography of Science,” in R.C. Olby, et.al., Companion to the History of Modern Science (London, 1996).  Now outdated, but fascinating for its positivist bent, is George Sarton's The Study of the History of Science.  One of the most entertaining historiographic essays is Joseph Agassiz's "Toward An Historiography of Science", (History and Theory, Beiheft 2).

On definitions of science, see "Amicus Curiae Brief of 7 Nobel Laureates... In the Supreme Court of the United States, October term, 1986", pp. 1-4, 23-26 [current implicit Supreme court standard]; Steve Woolgar, Science: The Very Idea (London, 1988); J.R. Ravetz, "The Varieties of Scientific Experience" in A.R. Peacocke, ed., The Sciences and Theology in the Twentieth Century; Gavin McCain and Erwin M. Segal, The Game of Science [(Belmont, 1969), especially Chs. 1 and 2]; Norman Campbell, What Is Science? (New York, 1952 from 1921 original); Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, 1962); Charles Alan Taylor, Defining Science: A Rhetoric of Demarcation (Madison, 1996).

Part I:
The Political Economy of Science at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century

Meeting 2 — January 23:
Science, Technology, and the First Industrial Revolution.

Common Reading:

• Selection from   R. Olson, Science Deified . . ., Vol. 2, pp. 316-370.  In course packet or on reserve.
• Bowler & Morus, Ch. 17, pp. 391- 414.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Neil McKendrick, "The Role of Science in the Industrial Revolution: A Study of Josiah Wedgewood as A Scientist and Industrial Chemist," in M. Teich and R. Young, eds., Changing Perspectives in the History of Science, pp. 274-319;
• Archibald and Nan Clow, The Chemical Revolution: A Contribution to Social Technology (Philadelphia, 1992 reprint of London, 1952 original);
• A.E. Musson and Eric Robinson, Science and Technology In the Industrial Revolution (Toronto, 1969);
• Otto Mayer, Authority, Liberty, and Automatic Machinery in Early Modern Europe (Baltimore, 1986);
  Peter Mathias, Science and Society, 1600-1900 (Cambridge, 1972);
• Robert Schofield, The Lunar Society Of Birmingham: A Social History of Provincial Science and Industry (Oxford, 1963);
  Margaret Jacob, Scientific Culture and the Making of the Industrial West (New York, 1997).

Meeting 3 — January 25:
Science and Scientism in France in the Aftermath of the French Revolution.

Common Reading:
Selections from R Olson, Science and Scientisms in 19th Century Europe, [hereafter SS19] Chs. 1-3,  in course packet.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Joseph Ben David, The Scientist's Role in Society, Ch. 6 (Chicago, 1971);
• Robert Fox and George Weisz, The Organization of Science and Technology in France: 1808-1914 (Cambridge, 1980);
• L. Pearce Williams, “The Politics of Science in the French Revolution,” pp. 291-308 in Marshall Clagett, Critical Problems in the History of Science (Madison, 1959);
• Cheryl B. Welch, Liberty and Utility: The French Ideologues And the Transformation of Liberalism (New York, 1984);
  Frank Manuel, The Prophets of Paris (Cambridge, MA, 1962);
• F.A. Hayek, The Counter-Revolution of Science: Studies on the Abuse of Reason (New York, 1952);
• Gertrude Lenzer, ed., Auguste Comte and Positivism: The Essential Writings (New York, 1975).

Meeting 4 — January 30:
“Romantic” Science and University Culture in Early 19th Century Germany

Common Reading:

• Selection from Olson, SS19 , Ch. 4, in course packet.
• A.S. Weber, 19th Century Science, selection from Goethe’s Theory of Colors, pp 67-76.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Kenneth Caneva, “Physics and Naturphilosophie: a Reconnaissance,” History of Science (1997): 36-106;
• Michael Friedman, Kant and the Exact Sciences (Cambridge, MA, 1992);
• Alexander Gode-Von Aesch, Natural Science in German Romanticism (New York, 1941);
• Rudolph Magnus, Goethe as a Scientist (New York, 1961).
• Robert Richards, The Romantic Conception of Life (Chicago, 2002)

Meeting 5 — February 1:
The Professionalization of Science in the Nineteenth Century

Common Reading:
Bowler & Morus, Ch. 14, pp. 319-340.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Everett Mendelsohn, "The Emergence of Science as a Profession in 19th Century Europe," in Karl Hill, The Management of Scientists (Boston, 1964);
• George Basalla, et. al., eds., Victorian Science (New York, 1970);
• A.D. Orange, "The Origins of the British Association for the Advancement of Science," British Journal for the History of Science, 6 (1972):152-176;
• R. Steven Turner, "The Growth of Professional Research in Prussia, 1818-1848, Causes and Context," Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences,3 (1971): 137-182;
• Thomas Browman, The Transformation of German Academic Medicine, 1750-1820 (Cambridge, 1996);
• Arlelene Tuchman, Science, Medicine, and the State in Germany, The Case of Baden, 1815-1871 (New York, 1993).

Meeting 6 — February 6:
The Spread of Science to Broader Audiences

Common Reading:

• Selection from Olson, SS19, Chs. 5 & 6, in course packet or on reserve.
• Bowler & Morus, Ch. 16, pp. 367-390.
• Weber, Selection from Faraday, The Chemical History of a Candle, pp. 253-263.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Frederick Gregory, Scientific Materialism in Nineteenth Century Germany (Dordrecht, 1977);
• Robert Kargon, Science in Victorian Manchester: Enterprise and Expertise (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1962);
• Susan Sheets-Pyenson, “Popular Science Periodicals in Paris and London: The Emergence of a Low Scientific Culture, 1820-1875,” Annals of Science, 42 (1985): 549-572;
• Steven Shapin and Barry Barnes, “Nature, Science, and Control: Interpreting Mechanics Institutes,” Social Studies of Science, 7 (1977);
• Thomas Hyde Cook, “Science, Philosophy and Culture in the Early Edinburgh Review, 1802-1829,” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 1976;
• Ian Inkster, “Science and the Mechanics Institutes, 1820-1850: The Case of Sheffield,” Annals of Science, 32 (1975):453-465.

Part II:
The Exact Sciences — 1800-1894

Meeting 7 — February 8:
Chemical Atomism and Electrochemistry to the 1860's

Common Reading:

• Bowler & Morus, ch. 3., pp 55- 78;
• Weber, selection from John Dalton, A New System of Chemistry, pp. 42-48.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Alan Rocke, Chemical Atomism from Dalton to Cannizzaro (Columbus, 1984);
• David Knight, Atoms and Elements: A Study Of Matter in England in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1967).

Meeting 8 — February 13:
Quiz #1, and Electricity and Magnetism Through the Work of Faraday

Common Reading:
Prepare for Quiz #1;

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• L.P. Williams, Michael Faraday (New York, 1965);
• L.P. Williams, The Origins of Field Theory (New York, 1966);
• R.A.R. Tricker, Early Electrodynamics (Oxford, 1965);
• Geoffrey Cantor, Michael Faraday, Sandemanian and Scientist (London, 1991).

Meeting  9 — February 15:
Electrodynamics and the Aether from Maxwell to Michaelson and Morley

Common Reading:
Weber, Selection from James Clerk Maxwell, A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field, pp. 302-314.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• R. Olson, Scottish Philosophy and British Physics, 1750-1870: A Study of the Foundations of the Victorian Scientific Style (Princeton, 1975);
• R.A.R. Tricker, Early Electrodynamics (Oxford, 1965);
• R.A.R. Tricker, The Contributions of Faraday and Maxwell to Electrical Science (Oxford, 1966);
• Sir Edmund Whittaker, A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity, 2 vols. (London, 1910, reprinted New York, 1951);
• Kenneth Schaffner, ed., Nineteenth Century Aether Theories (Oxford, 1972);
• Bruce Hunt, The Maxwellians (Ithaca, 1991);
• Barbara Doran, "Origins and Consolidation of Field Theory in 19th Century Britain: From the Mechanical to the Electromagnetic View of Nature," Historical Studies of the Physical Sciences,6 (1975): 133-260.

Meeting 10 — February 20:
Energetics I: Heat, Light, Electricity, and the Conservation of Energy.

Common Reading:

• Bowler & Morus, Ch.4, pp. 79- 102.
• Weber, Selection from Herman von Helmholtz, On the Conservation of Force, pp. 278-299.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• R. Olson, "Count Rumford, Sir John Leslie, and the Study of the Nature and Propagation of Heat at the Beginning of the 19th Century," Annals of Science, 20 (1970): 273-304;
• G.N. Cantor, "The Reception of the Wave Theory of Light in Britain...," Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, 6(1975): 109-132;
• Eugene Frankel, "Corpuscular Optics and the Wave Theory of Light: The Science and Politics of a Revolution in Physics," Social Studies of Science,6 (1976): 141-184;
• David M. Knight, "The Physical Sciences and the Romantic Movement," History of Science,9(1970): 54-75;
  L.P. Williams, The Origins of Field Theory (New York, 1966);
• Morton Mott-Smith, The Concept of Energy Simply Explained (New York, 1964 reprint of 1934 original, "The Story of Energy");
• T.S. Kuhn, "Energy Conservation as an Example of Simultaneous Discovery," in Marshall Claggett, Critical Problems in the History of Science (Madison, 1959), pp. 321-356.
• Yahuda Elkana, The Discovery of the Conservation of Energy (London, 1974).

Meeting 11 — February 22:
Energetics II: From the Conservation of Energy to the Statistical Interpretation of Entropy.

Common Reading:
Robert Purrington, selection from Physics in the Nineteenth Century, Ch.7, pp. 132-147. In course packet.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Clifford Truesdell, The Tragicomical History of Thermodynamics — 1822-1854;
• Stephen Brush, ed., Kinetic Theory (Oxford, 1965);
• Stephen Brush, “Foundations of Statistical Mechanics, 1845-1915,” Archives for the History of the Exact Sciences, 4 (1967): 145-183. 
• Englebert Broda, Ludwig Boltzmann: Man, Physicist, Philosopher (Woodbridge, CT, 1983).

Meeting 12 — February 28:
Organic Chemistry From Vitalism to Structural Formulas.

Common Readings:
Mary Jo Nye, Selection from Before Big Science, pp. 120-146. In course packet.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• H.M. Leicester, The Historical Background of Chemistry (New York, 1965);
• O.T. Benfey, From Vital Force to Structural Formulas (Washington, DC, 1975);
• Aaron Ihde, The Development of Modern Chemistry (New York, 1965).

Meeting 13 — March 1:
Quiz #2; The Fusion of Exact Science and Advanced Technology in the Late Nineteenth Century

Common Reading:
Prepare for Quiz #2.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• John J. Beer, The Emergence of the German Dye Industry (Urbana, 1959);
• Thomas Hughes, Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society: 1880-1930 (Baltimore, 1983);
• Charles Singer, et. al., eds., A History of Technology, Volume 5: The Late Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1958);
• Melvin Kransberg and Carroll Purcell, eds. Technology in Western Civilization, 2 vols. (New York, 1967 [many excellent articles]).

Part III:
Geology and the Life Sciences — 1800 - c1910

Meeting 14 — March 6:
The Rise of Experimental Biology: Cell Theory and Embryology

Common Reading:

• Bowler & Morus, Ch. 7, pp. 165-188.
• Weber, selection from Theodor Schwann, Microscopal Researches, pp 119-136.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• William Coleman, Biology in the Nineteenth Century: Problems of Form, Function, and Transformation (New York, 1971);
• Timothy Lenoir, Strategy of Life (Chicago, 1989 from 1982 original);
• S. Bradbury, The Evolution of the Microscope (Oxford, 1967);
• Jane Oppenheimer, Essays in the History of Embryology and Biology (Cambridge, MA, 1967).

Meeting 15 — March 8:
The Rise of An Historical Perspective in the Sciences I: The History of the Earth and Early Anthropology and Anthropometry.

Common Reading:

• Bowler & Morus, Ch. 5 103-128
• Stephen J. Gould, The Mismeasure of Man, pp. 62-104.
• Weber, Selection from Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, pp. 100-112.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Claude C. Albritton, Jr., The Abyss of Time: Changing Conceptions of the Earth's Antiquity After the Sixteenth Century (New York, 1986);
• C.C. Gillispie, Genesis and Geology (New York, 1951);
• Martin J.S. Rudwick, The Great Devonian Controversy (Chicago, 1985);
• James A. Secord, Controversy in Victorian Geology: The Cambrian-Silurian Dispute (Princeton, 1986);
• Roy Porter, The Rise of Statistical Thinking (Princeton, 1986);
• William Stanton, The Leopard's Spots: Scientific Attitudes Toward Race in America, 1815-1859 (Chicago, 1960);
• Nancy Stepan, The Idea of Race in Science, 1800-1960 (Hamden, 1982);
• Edward Evans-Pritchard, A History of Anthropological Thought (New York, 1981);
• Robert Nye, Crime, Madness, and Politics in Modern France: The Medical Concept of National Decline (Princeton, 1984);
• Daniel Pick, Faces of Degeneration: A European Disorder: c 1848-1919 (Cambridge, 1989).

SPRING BREAK — March 10-19

Meeting 16 — March 20:
Biological Evolution through the Darwinian Revolution

Common Reading:

• Bowler and Morus, Ch. 6, pp. 129-164.
• Weber, selections from Lamarck, Spencer, and Darwin, pp. 49-66, 190-202, 215-244.

View in Class:
Charles Darwin: Evolution’s Voice (~50 min)

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Peter Bowler, Evolution: The History of an Idea (Berkeley, 1989);
• Loren Eisley, Darwin's Century (New York, 1958);
• Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist (New York, 1993);
• David Kohn, ed., The Darwinian Heritage (Princeton, 1985);
• Robert J. Richards, Darwin and The Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior (Chicago, 1987);
• Adrian Desmond, The Politics of Evolution (Chicago, 1991).

Meeting 17 — March 22:
Darwinism, Gender, and Race: Illustrations of the Ideological Uses of Biology.

Common Reading:

• Gould, The Mismeasure of Man, Ch. 3, pp 105-141.
• Weber, Selection from Francis Galton, Hereditary Genius I, pp. 345-356.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Jill Conway, "Stereotypes of Femininity in a Theory of Sexual Evolution," Victorian Studies,14 (1970): 47-62;
• Susan S. Mosedale, "Science Corrupted: Victorian Biologists Consider, 'The Woman Question,'" Journal of the History of Biology,11 (1978): 1-55;
• Elaine Showalter, The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980 (New York, 1985);
• Paul Crook, Darwinism, War, and History (Cambridge, 1994).

Part IV:
20th Century Revolutions in Biology, Physics, and Engineering

Meeting 18 — March 27:
Quiz # 3; The New Biology of the Early 20th Century: Pre-Molecular Genetics and Its Extension to Eugenics.

Common Reading:

• Prepare for Quiz # 3
• Bowler & Morus, Ch. 8, pp. 189-212.
• Gould, The Mismeasure of Man, Ch. 5, pp. 176-263.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Diane B. Paul, Controlling Human Heredity (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1995);
• Dan Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics (Berkeley, 1986);
• Peter Bowler, The Mendelian Revolution (Baltimore, 1989);
• Nancy Leys Stepan, "The Hour of Eugenics": Race, Gender, and Nation in Latin America (Ithaca, 1991);
• Hamilton Cravens, The Triumph of Evolution: The Heredity-Environment Controversy, 1900-1941 (Baltimore, 1988);
• Garland Allen, Thomas Hunt Morgan, The Man and His Science (Princeton, 1978).

Meeting 19 — March 29:
The Rise of Molecular Biology

Common Reading:
James Watson, The Double Helix all (although long, this book reads like a novel).

View in Class:
The Secret of Photo 51

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Garland Allen, Life Science in the Twentieth Century (New York, 1975);
• Horace F. Judson, The Eighth Day of Creation (New York, 1980).

Meeting 20 — April 3:
The Revolution in Physics I: New Radiations and Particles, 1895-1910

Common Reading:

• Bowler & Morus, Ch. 11, pp. 253-276.
• Weber, Selections from Roentgen & Curie, pp. 445-460.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• J.J. Lagowski, The Structure of Atoms (Boston, 1964);
• David L. Anderson, The Discovery of the Electron: The Development of the Atomic Concept of Electricity (Princeton, 1964);
• E.N. Jenkins, Radioactivity: A Science in Historical and Social Context (New York, 1979);
• Alfred Romer, ed., The Discovery of Radioactivity and Transmutation (New York, 1964);
• Mario Bunge and W.R. Shea, Rutherford and Physics at The Turn of the Century (New York, 1979);
• George Thomson, J.J. Thomson, Discoverer of the Electron (New York, 1966).

Meeting 21 — April 5:
From the Bohr Atom to Quantum Chemistry

Common Reading:
None — work on research paper due next week.

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• P.C.W. Davies and J.R. Brown, eds., The Ghost in the Atom (Cambridge, 1986);
• J.L. Heilbron, The Dilemmas of An Upright Man: Max Planck as Spokesman for German Science (Berkeley, 1986);
• Jagdesh Mehra and Helmut Rechenberg, The Historical Development of Quantum Theory,I (New York, 1982) — see reviews in Science,220 (1983): 824-827 and Isis,76 (1985): 388-93, on strictures on the use of this source;
• C. Weiner, ed., History of Twentieth Century Physics (New York, 1977);
• J.L. Heilbron and T.S. Kuhn, "The Genesis of the Bohr Atom," Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences,I (1969):211-290.

Meeting 22 — April 10:
The Special Theory of Relativity and some Cultural Ramifications of Modern Physics.
NOTE: Research Paper Due

Common Reading:
Selections from R. Olson, Science as Metaphor, pp. 267-300. In course packet

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• David Cassidy, Einstein and Our World (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1995);
• Stanley Goldberg, Understanding Relativity: Origin and Impact of a Scientific Revolution (Cambridge, 1984);
• Gerald Holton & Yehuda Elkana, Albert Einstein: Historical and Cultural Perspectives (Princeton, 1982);
• Arthur I. Miller, Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity: Emergence and Early Interpretation (Boston, 1984);
• L. Pearce Williams, ed., Relativity Theory: Its Origin and Impact on Modern Thought (New York, 1968).

Meeting 23 — April 12:
Scientistic and Technocratic Trends in the Early Twentieth Century.

Common Readings:

• John Burnham, Science in America, pp. 239-271 (in course packet);
• Frederick W. Taylor, selections from The Principles of Scientific Management (to be distributed in class).

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Howard P. Segal, Technological Utopianism in American Culture (Chicago, 1985);
• Frederick W. Taylor, Principles of Scientific Management (New York, 1911);
• Martha Banta, Taylored Lives: Narrative Productions in the Age of Taylor, Veblen, and Ford (New Haven, 1993);
• Samuel P. Hayes, Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Conservation Movement — 1890-1920 (Cambridge, 1975 from 1959 original);
• Robert Kanigel, The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency (New York, 1997);
• Samuel Haber, Efficiency and Uplift: Scientific Management in the Progressive Era, (Chicago, 1964);
• Kendal Bailes, Technology and Society Under Lenin and Stalin (Princeton, 1978);
• Monika Renneberg and Mark Walker, Science, Technology, and National Socialism (Cambridge, 1994);
• Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (New York, 1970);
• Paul Josephson, Totalitarian Science and Technology (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1996).

Meeting 24 — April 17:
Nuclear Physics and “The Bomb”

Common Reading:
Jeff Hughes, The Manhattan Project, pp. 1-83.

View in Class:
The day after Trinity (first ~ 60 min.)

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Neul Pharr Davis, Lawrence and Oppenheimer (New York, 1968);
• Barbara Lovett Cline, The Men Who Made a New Physics (New York, 1965);
• Arnold Thackray, ed., Science after '40, Osiris, 7, 1993;
• Daniel Kevles, The Physicists (New York, 1978);
• Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (New York, 1986);
• Alice K. Smith, A Peril and A Hope: The Scientists Movement in America 1945-1947 (Chicago, 1965).

No class on April 19 –HMC Humanities and Social Sciences Advising Days
Friday, April 28:

Meeting 25 — April; 24:
Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Their Immediate Consequences

Common Reading:
Hughes, pp. 84-163.;

View in Class:
remainder of The Day After Trinity; view Hiroshima, Nagasaki (footage taken by Japanese cameramen immediately after the two blasts).

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Martin Sherwin, A World Destroyed: The Atomic Bomb and the Grand Alliance (New York, 1975);
• United States Strategic Bombing Survey, The Effects of Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Washington, DC, 1946);
• Spencer Weart, Nuclear Fear: A History of Images (Cambridge, MA, 1988);
• Raphael Sassower, Technoscientific Angst: Ethics and Responsibility (Minneapolis, 1997).
• Kai Bird & Martin Sherwin, American Prometeus: The Triumph and tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (New York, 2005)

Meeting 26 — April 26:
Quiz#4; comments on Cold War Science; course evaluation; Final exams handed out.

Common Reading:
Prepare for Quiz # 4

Sources of Additional Perspectives:

• Joel Primack and Frank von Hippel, Advice and Dissent: Scientists in the Political Arena (New York, 1974);
• David Dickson, The Politics of Alternative Technology (New York, 1974);
• James C. Peterson, Citizen Participation in Science Policy (Amherst, MA, 1984);
• William W. Lawrence, Of Acceptable Risk (Los Altos, CA, 1976);
• David C. Chambers, Worm In The Bud: Case Study of the Pesticide Controversy (Victoria, Australia, 1984);
• David Dickson, The New Politics of Science (Chicago, 1988);
• Stuart W. Leslie, The Cold War and American Science: The Military Industrial Complex at MIT and Stanford (New York, 1993);
• Bruce L. R. Smith, American Science Policy Since World War II (Washington, DC, 1990).

May 4   — 5:00 P.M.: Finals due for all senior students electing to take them

May 8  — 5:00 P.M.: Finals  due for all other students