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Library | Item Barcode | Call Number | Material Type | Item Category 1 | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... | 30000010207698 | QC271.6 C46 2007 | Open Access Book | Book | Searching... |
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Summary
Summary
What is temperature, and how can we measure it correctly? These may seem like simple questions, but the most renowned scientists struggled with them throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. In Inventing Temperature, Chang examines how scientists first created thermometers; how they measured temperature beyond the reach of standard thermometers; and how they managed to assess the reliability and accuracy of these instruments without a circular reliance on the instruments themselves. In a discussion that brings together the history of science with the philosophy of science, Chang presents the simple eet challenging epistemic and technical questions about these instruments, and the complex web of abstract philosophical issues surrounding them. Chang's book shows that many items of knowledge that we take for granted now are in fact spectacular achievements, obtained only after a great deal of innovative thinking, painstaking experiments, bold conjectures, and controversy. Lurking behind these achievements are some very important philosophical questions about how and when people accept the authority of science.
Author Notes
Hasok Chang is Reader in Philosophy of Science at University College London.
Reviews 1
Choice Review
Beginning physics students are usually taught that thermometry is simply defined in terms of the freezing and boiling points of water, these points are simple and self-evident, and that is that. In this interesting, excellent book, Chang (University College London) observes that the phenomenon of boiling is not so self-evident and that there is a long history of experimental and theoretical endeavor and confusion leading up to the current practical and theoretical usage of temperature. The first three chapters discuss the fixing of the thermometric fixed points, the construction of thermometers, and the extrapolation to temperatures outside the range between the fixed points. The fourth chapter explores the history of the thermodynamic definition of temperature, and the last two chapters explore the relation between the history and philosophy of science and the science itself. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. General readers; lower-division undergraduates through professionals. A. M. Saperstein Wayne State University
Table of Contents
| Note on Translation | p. xv |
| Chronology | p. xvii |
| Introduction | p. 3 |
| 1 Keeping the Fixed Points Fixed | p. 8 |
| Narrative: What to Do When Water Refuses to Boil at the Boiling Point | p. 8 |
| Blood, Butter, and Deep Cellars: The Necessity and Scarcity of Fixed Points | p. 8 |
| The Vexatious Variations of the Boiling Point | p. 11 |
| Superheating and the Mirage of True Ebullition | p. 17 |
| Escape from Superheating | p. 23 |
| The Understanding of Boiling | p. 28 |
| A Dusty Epilogue | p. 35 |
| Analysis: The Meaning and Achievement of Fixity | p. 39 |
| The Validation of Standards: Justificatory Descent | p. 40 |
| The Iterative Improvement of Standards: Constructive Ascent | p. 44 |
| The Defense of Fixity: Plausible Denial and Serendipitous Robustness | p. 48 |
| The Case of the Freezing Point | p. 53 |
| 2 Spirit, Air, and Quicksilver | p. 57 |
| Narrative: The Search for the "Real" Scale of Temperature | p. 57 |
| The Problem of Nomic Measurement | p. 57 |
| De Luc and the Method of Mixtures | p. 60 |
| Caloric Theories against the Method of Mixtures | p. 64 |
| The Calorist Mirage of Gaseous Linearity | p. 69 |
| Regnault: Austerity and Comparability | p. 74 |
| The Verdict: Air over Mercury | p. 79 |
| Analysis: Measurement and Theory in the Context of Empiricism | p. 84 |
| The Achievement of Observability, by Stages | p. 84 |
| Comparability and the Ontological Principle of Single Value | p. 89 |
| Minimalism against Duhemian Holism | p. 92 |
| Regnault and Post-Laplacian Empiricism | p. 96 |
| 3 To Go Beyond | p. 103 |
| Narrative: Measuring Temperature When Thermometers Melt and Freeze | p. 103 |
| Can Mercury Be Frozen? | p. 104 |
| Can Mercury Tell Us Its Own Freezing Point? | p. 107 |
| Consolidating the Freezing Point of Mercury | p. 113 |
| Adventures of a Scientific Potter | p. 118 |
| It Is Temperature, but Not As We Know It? | p. 123 |
| Ganging Up on Wedgwood | p. 128 |
| Analysis: The Extension of Concepts beyond Their Birth Domains | p. 141 |
| Travel Advisory from Percy Bridgman | p. 142 |
| Beyond Bridgman: Meaning, Definition, and Validity | p. 148 |
| Strategies for Metrological Extension | p. 152 |
| Mutual Grounding as a Growth Strategy | p. 155 |
| 4 Theory, Measurement, and Absolute Temperature | p. 159 |
| Narrative: The Quest for the Theoretical Meaning of Temperature | p. 159 |
| Temperature, Heat, and Cold | p. 160 |
| Theoretical Temperature before Thermodynamics | p. 168 |
| William Thomson's Move to the Abstract | p. 173 |
| Thomson's Second Absolute Temperature | p. 182 |
| Semi-Concrete Models of the Cannot Cycle | p. 186 |
| Using Gas Thermometers to Approximate Absolute Temperature | p. 192 |
| Analysis: Operationalization-Making Contact between Thinking and Doing | p. 197 |
| The Hidden Difficulties of Reduction | p. 197 |
| Dealing with Abstractions | p. 202 |
| Operationalization and Its Validity | p. 205 |
| Accuracy through Iteration | p. 212 |
| Theoretical Temperature without Thermodynamics? | p. 217 |
| 5 Measurement, Justification, and Scientific Progress | p. 220 |
| Measurement, Circularity, and Coherentism | p. 221 |
| Making Coherentism Progressive: Epistemic Iteration | p. 224 |
| Fruits of Iteration: Enrichment and Self-Correction | p. 228 |
| Tradition, Progress, and Pluralism | p. 231 |
| The Abstract and the Concrete | p. 233 |
| 6 Complementary Science-History and Philosophy of Science as a Continuation of Science by Other Means | p. 235 |
| The Complementary Function of History and Philosophy of Science | p. 236 |
| Philosophy, History, and Their Interaction in Complementary Science | p. 238 |
| The Character of Knowledge Generated by Complementary Science | p. 240 |
| Relations to Other Modes of Historical and Philosophical Study of Science | p. 247 |
| A Continuation of Science by Other Means | p. 249 |
| Glossary of Scientific, Historical, and Philosophical Terms | p. 251 |
| Bibliography | p. 259 |
| Index | p. 275 |
