Around the 1870s, American universities began to separate and segment the sciences and humanities, a rift that deepened as the country grappled with the “horrors” of technological advancement during World War I. As a curiosity, the first course in the history of science in America was on the history of chemistry at Harvard in 1890.
But it was not until the 1950s and 1960s, with the publication of Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions (who argues that science is not necessarily cumulative, but rather functions as a “series of peaceful interludes marked by intellectually revolutions. violent “) that the field of the history of science truly grew.
Today, while there are much more important things like articulating the severity of climate change and seeking new insights to help combat it, dealing with sexual harassment and discrimination, or trying to figure out what dark matter is, staying sane requires an occasional deviation from everything that causes us despair and discouragement. On gloomy days, it sometimes helps to remember happier times and reflect on some of the great achievements of science and the scientists responsible for them.
Hence, it is so convenient to mark the anniversaries of each year.
Fortunately, 2019 offers numerous celebration opportunities, many more than we can even cite here ; So if your favorite anniversary is not on the list (like the centennial of American electrical engineer and computer pioneer J. Presper Eckert, the bicentennial of John Couch Adams, an English mathematician and astronomer famous for predicting the existence and position of the planet Neptune, using only mathematics or the 200 years of the birth of the French physicist Jean Bernard Léon Foucault who experimentally demonstrated the Earth’s rotation in 1851 by means of a huge pendulum, which we all know as the ‘Foucault pendulum’) you can let us know in the comments .
Which of all these scientific anniversaries would you rank at the top? Although the decision is complicated, we opted for the 50 years since the arrival of man on the Moon. And you?
