Scientific Babel

Scientific Babel
Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Total Pages : 424
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780226000329
ISBN-13 : 022600032X
Rating : 4/5 (32X Downloads)

Book Synopsis Scientific Babel by : Michael D. Gordin

Download or read book Scientific Babel written by Michael D. Gordin and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-04-13 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: English is the language of science today. No matter which languages you know, if you want your work seen, studied, and cited, you need to publish in English. But that hasn’t always been the case. Though there was a time when Latin dominated the field, for centuries science has been a polyglot enterprise, conducted in a number of languages whose importance waxed and waned over time—until the rise of English in the twentieth century. So how did we get from there to here? How did French, German, Latin, Russian, and even Esperanto give way to English? And what can we reconstruct of the experience of doing science in the polyglot past? With Scientific Babel, Michael D. Gordin resurrects that lost world, in part through an ingenious mechanism: the pages of his highly readable narrative account teem with footnotes—not offering background information, but presenting quoted material in its original language. The result is stunning: as we read about the rise and fall of languages, driven by politics, war, economics, and institutions, we actually see it happen in the ever-changing web of multilingual examples. The history of science, and of English as its dominant language, comes to life, and brings with it a new understanding not only of the frictions generated by a scientific community that spoke in many often mutually unintelligible voices, but also of the possibilities of the polyglot, and the losses that the dominance of English entails. Few historians of science write as well as Gordin, and Scientific Babel reveals his incredible command of the literature, language, and intellectual essence of science past and present. No reader who takes this linguistic journey with him will be disappointed.


Scientific Babel Related Books

Scientific Babel
Language: en
Pages: 424
Authors: Michael D. Gordin
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2015-04-13 - Publisher: University of Chicago Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

English is the language of science today. No matter which languages you know, if you want your work seen, studied, and cited, you need to publish in English. Bu
Are We All Scientific Experts Now?
Language: en
Pages: 84
Authors: Harry Collins
Categories: Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2014-03-28 - Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

To ordinary people, science used to seem infallible. Scientists were heroes, selflessly pursuing knowledge for the common good. More recently, a series of scien
The Scientific Attitude
Language: en
Pages: 291
Authors: Lee McIntyre
Categories: Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2019-05-07 - Publisher: MIT Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An argument that what makes science distinctive is its emphasis on evidence and scientists' willingness to change theories on the basis of new evidence. Attacks
Reproducibility and Replicability in Science
Language: en
Pages: 257
Authors: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Categories: Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2019-10-20 - Publisher: National Academies Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

One of the pathways by which the scientific community confirms the validity of a new scientific discovery is by repeating the research that produced it. When a
Communicating Science Effectively
Language: en
Pages: 153
Authors: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Categories: Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2017-03-08 - Publisher: National Academies Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Science and technology are embedded in virtually every aspect of modern life. As a result, people face an increasing need to integrate information from science