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Framing global mathematics: the International Mathematical Union between theorems and politics Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-03-07 Karen Hunger Parshall
Published in Annals of Science (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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Julius Haast and the discovery of the origin of alpine lakes Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-02-05 George Hook
This article investigates Haast’s claim that in March 1862 he independently reached the same controversial conclusion as Ramsay, that lake basins in previously glaciated regions were formed by anci...
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Promises of precision: questioning precision in ‘precision’ instruments Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-02-02 Sibylle Gluch
Published in Annals of Science (Vol. 81, No. 1-2, 2024)
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Time troubles: clocks and practices of precision in early eighteenth-century observatories Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-02-02 Sibylle Gluch
In 1736/37, Joseph-Nicolas Delisle and Jean Jacques Dortous de Mairan communicated about the clocks that would enable the astronomers of the Saint Petersburg observatory to make highly exact observ...
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Quantification and precision: a brief look at some ancient accounts Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-02-02 Arthur Harris, Liba Taub
We explore the extent to which ancient Greek authors formulated concepts that approximate or encompass our modern notions of precision and accuracy. First, we focus on estimates and measurements of...
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Managing precision: how to use chronometers accurately at sea Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-02-02 Emily Akkermans
Marine chronometers, often considered precision instruments, proliferated in navigational practices during the nineteenth century. This paper examines their use in the hands of naval officers in th...
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‘Si te omnimoda delectat precisio’: early astronomical instruments with scales and the multiple meanings of precision in the sixteenth century Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-02-02 Samuel Gessner
This paper explores the various meanings of precision during the early modern period in Europe. In contrast with existing literature focused on assessing the precision of early instruments, this st...
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The social life of precision instruments: artisans’ trials in early-modern England, 1550–1700 Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-02-02 Boris Jardine
This paper examines the role of mathematical instrument makers in establishing a public culture of precision measurement in early-modern England. I argue that this culture was promoted through tria...
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How to ensure a chronometer’s accuracy. Josiah Emery timekeepers and their users Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-02-02 Rossella Baldi
Precision was not a quality expected from ordinary watches in the eighteenth century, which required specific maintenance to function correctly. The precautions to be taken to ensure the accuracy o...
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The promises and pitfalls of precision: random and systematic error in physical geodesy, c. 1800–1910 Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-02-02 Miguel Ohnesorge
This article discusses the ways in which nineteenth-century geodesists reflected on precision as an epistemic virtue in their measurement practice. Physical geodesy is often understood as a quintes...
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Popularizing precision: cultures of exactness at the Paris observatory, 1667–1742 Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-02-02 David Aubin
This article maps out the lexical landscape of precision from the late seventeenth to the early eighteenth century and investigate the various meanings of precision, both as a word and a concept, w...
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Searching for precision: Lorenz Eichstadt’s Tabulae harmonicae coelestium motuum (Stetin 1644) and astronomical prediction after Kepler Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-02-02 Richard L. Kremer
In the century between the creation of the first large, European astronomical observatory by Tycho Brahe in the 1580s and the national observatories of France and England in the 1660–1670s, astrono...
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Francis Bacon and the practices of measurement Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-02-02 Dana Jalobeanu
The instrumental character of Francis Bacon’s natural and experimental histories was often noted, but never fully investigated. In this paper I aim to reconstruct the theoretical and methodological...
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Directions of precision: George Graham’s instructions for his pendulum astronomical clocks Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-02-02 Luís Tirapicos
In the 1720s two Jesuit astronomers working at the court of King João V of Portugal, in Lisbon, received several instruments produced by the best makers in London, Paris and Rome. With the crucial ...
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On being sufficiently exact: assessing navigational instruments in the eighteenth century Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-02-02 Richard Dunn
This paper explores discussions centred on the activities of the British Board of Longitude to consider the ways in which some men of science, instrument makers and others thought about questions o...
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A light on Ibn al-Haytham’s optics, Books IV and V Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-01-25 Dominique Raynaud
Published in Annals of Science (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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Sailing the ocean of nature: Francesca Fontana Aldrovandi in early modern Bologna Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-01-21 Noemi Di Tommaso
The history of science is increasingly directing its attention to the diachronic examination of women's involvement within spaces dedicated to scientific inquiry. While this field of study boasts r...
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Star Noise: Discovering the Radio Universe Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-01-21 Robert W. Smith
Published in Annals of Science (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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Heroic resuscitation? An attempt to revive Descartes’ method Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-01-18 John A. Schuster
Published in Annals of Science (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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Lynceorum historia: le ‘schede lincee’ di Martin Fogel Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-01-15 Cristiano Zanetti
Published in Annals of Science (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier’s ‘Sur la nature de l’eau’: an annotated English translation Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-01-12 Liz Kambas
On November 14th, 1770, the young chemist Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (1743–1794) read his ‘Sur la nature de l’eau’ to the Académie des Sciences. Eventually published in the Académie’s journal in 177...
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Sound between water and light: images and analogies in early acoustics, 1660–1710 Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-12-26 Leendert van der Miesen
Sounds are heard, sometimes even felt, but in most cases they remain unseen. This ephemeral and invisible nature of sound was already considered a problem when the science of acoustics took form in...
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Stahl in France: an unknown Latin translation of the Zufällige Gedancken und nützliche Bedencken über den Streit, von dem so genannten Sulfure (1718) owned by Étienne-François Geoffroy, Jean Hellot and Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-12-11 Marco Beretta
This essay focuses on an unknown Latin translation of Georg Ernst Stahl's treatise on the nature of sulfur (Zufällige Gedancken und Nützliche Bedencken über den Streit von dem so genannten Sulfure)...
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Oxford mathematics at a low ebb? An 1855 dispute over examination results Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-12-11 Christopher D. Hollings
Between December 1855 and March 1856, a public dispute raged, in British national newspapers and locally published pamphlets, between two teachers at the University of Oxford: the mathematical lect...
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David Brewster’s and William Herschel’s experiments on inflection that delivered the coup de grâce to Thomas Young’s ether distribution hypothesis Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-12-08 Olivier Morizot
In his ‘Theory of Light and Colours’, presented to the Royal Society in November 1801, Thomas Young defended a mechanical explanation of the coloured fringes observed outside of the shadow of an op...
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Ole Rømer’s Triduum vol. I–III Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-10-17 Fokko Jan Dijksterhuis
Published in Annals of Science (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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Inventing the language of Things: the emergence of scientific reporting in seventeenth-century England Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-08-02 Plamena Panayotova
ABSTRACT As a style of writing and a form of communication, the modern scientific report enables the creation, sharing and continuous updating of natural knowledge in such a manner that the idiosyncrasies of ordinary language are reduced to a minimum. This article examines how the standards for scientific reporting were ‘born’ in the seventeenth century and their legacy. The first part of the article
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Engraving accuracy in early modern England: visual communication and the Royal Society Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-07-30 Sachiko Kusukawa
Published in Annals of Science (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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Sound authorities: scientific and musical knowledge in nineteenth-century Britain Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-07-30 Coreen McGuire
Published in Annals of Science (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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The Doctor Who Wasn’t There: Technology, History, and the Limits of Telehealth Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-07-25 Jiemin Tina Wei
Published in Annals of Science (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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Galilean resonances: the role of experiment in Turing’s construction of machine intelligence Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-07-19 Bernardo Gonçalves
ABSTRACT In 1950, Alan Turing proposed his iconic imitation game, calling it a ‘test’, an ‘experiment’, and the ‘the only really satisfactory support’ for his view that machines can think. Following Turing’s rhetoric, the ‘Turing test’ has been widely received as a kind of crucial experiment to determine machine intelligence. In later sources, however, Turing showed a milder attitude towards what he
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On Simon Mayr’s alleged discovery of Jupiter’s satellites Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-07-05 Gabriele Vanin
ABSTRACT In 1614, the German astronomer Simon Mayr published his claim about the discovery of Jupiter’s satellites. In his treatise Mundus Jovialis, Mayr made his assertion in a convoluted but unequivocal manner, earning resentment from Galileo Galilei, who published his harsh protest in 1623 in Il Saggiatore. Though Galileo’s objections were fallacious in some respects, and though numerous scholars
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A telescopic paradox: the artisans of the Accademia del Cimento, their instruments and their (in)visibility Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-06-13 Cristiano Zanetti
ABSTRACT The brief life of the Accademia del Cimento (1657–1667), the first known society with a purely experimental programme,11 Over the period of a year and a half in 2020–2021, I had the honor to join the European-funded research group Tacitroots under the direction of Professor Giulia Giannini, at the Università Statale di Milano. My task was to research the instruments of the Accademia del Cimento
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Kant & the Naturalistic Turn of 18th century philosophy Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-06-08 Michael Olson
Published in Annals of Science (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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Anachronisms in the History of Mathematics: Essays on the Historical Interpretation of Mathematical Texts Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-06-03 Tom Archibald
Published in Annals of Science (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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Pierre Gassendi: humanism, science, and the birth of modern philosophy Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-05-31 Steven Nadler
Published in Annals of Science (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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The two ‘strongest pillars of the empiricist wing’: the Vienna Circle, German academia and emigration in the light of correspondence between Philipp Frank and Richard von Mises (1916–1939) Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-05-22 Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze
ABSTRACT This paper is divided into a surveying and argumentative part and a slightly longer documentary part, which is meant to verify or at least make more plausible claims made in the first part. The first part deals in broad outline with the relationship of Frank and von Mises to the Vienna Circle of Logical Empiricism on the one hand and to the physicists and mathematicians in the German-speaking
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Knowledge flows in a global age: a transnational approach Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-05-12 Giles Scott-Smith
Published in Annals of Science (Vol. 80, No. 4, 2023)
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Norwegian climatology, the Republic of Letters and the Nordic Enlightenment Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-05-10 Siobhan Moira Ryan
ABSTRACT Although natural philosophers of Enlightenment Europe shared common ideals, like reliance on reason and natural philosophy, to promote what they deemed to be progress; there were national differences in attitude and disciplinary focus. This paper takes various eligibility criteria as a starting point from which to define a Nordic Enlightenment science; and situates endeavours in climate science
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Making physicians. Tradition, teaching, and trials at Leiden University, 1575–1639, vol. 1. Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-05-07 Anita Guerrini
Published in Annals of Science (Vol. 80, No. 4, 2023)
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The use of the conservation of living force before Helmholtz Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-05-04 Shaul Katzir
ABSTRACT In his recent authoritative Helmholtz and the Conservation of Energy, Kenneth Caneva has claimed that earlier authors had invoked the principle of conservation of living force only in cases of a system returning to an earlier state, or of one without Newtonian forces. Relaying on texts in the tradition of the French Analytical Mechanics form Lagrange to Coriolis, I argue that this was not
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Analytical essay on the faculties of the soul Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-04-20 Catherine Wilson
Published in Annals of Science (Vol. 80, No. 4, 2023)
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A new history of greek mathematics Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-04-18 Jens Høyrup
Published in Annals of Science (Vol. 80, No. 3, 2023)
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The many histories of the conflict thesis: the science vs. religion narrative in nineteenth-century Germany Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-04-18 Christoffer Leber, Claus Spenninger
ABSTRACT The idea of an inevitable conflict between science and religion leading to relentless hostility between the two emerged in the nineteenth century and has become a powerful narrative of modernity. Most historians of science trace the origins of the so-called ‘conflict thesis’ to the English-speaking world, more precisely to scientist-historian John William Draper and literary scholar Andrew
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The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton Volume II: The Opticks and Related Papers ca. 1688–1717 Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-04-12 Robert Goulding
Published in Annals of Science (Vol. 80, No. 3, 2023)
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Darwin’s dark matter: utter extinction Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-04-12 Mary Pickard Winsor
ABSTRACT Species that died without leaving descendants Darwin called ‘utterly extinct’. They far outnumber the ancestors of all living things, so they resemble the dark matter of modern cosmology, which far outweighs visible matter. He realized in 1837 that their absence is what creates the groups in a natural classification. In his Notebook B he combined the idea that species multiply with the idea
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Lady Ranelagh: the incomparable life of Robert Boyle’s sister Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-04-08 Carol Pal
Published in Annals of Science (Vol. 80, No. 3, 2023)
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Newton's ‘De Aere et Aethere’ and the introduction of interparticulate forces into his physics Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-03-26 John Henry
ABSTRACT As well as the mathematically-supported celestial mechanics that Newton developed in his Principia, Newton also proposed a more speculative natural philosophy of interparticulate forces of attraction and repulsion. Although this speculative philosophy was not made public before the ‘Queries’ which Newton appended to the Opticks, it originated far earlier in Newton’s career. This article makes
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Colonial rodent control in Tanganyika and the application of ecological frameworks Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-03-12 Jia Hui Lee
ABSTRACT At the end of the 1920s, Tanganyika Territory experienced several serious rodent outbreaks that threatened cotton and other grain production. At the same time, regular reports of pneumonic and bubonic plague occurred in the northern areas of Tanganyika. These events led the British colonial administration to dispatch several studies into rodent taxonomy and ecology in 1931 to determine the
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Nautical astrology: a forgotten early modern tradition Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-02-19 Luís Campos Ribeiro
ABSTRACT While the link between navigation and astronomy is quite evident and its history has been extensively explored, the prognosticatory element included in astronomical knowledge has been almost completely left out. In the early modern world, the science of the stars also included prognostication known today as astrology. Together with astronomical learning, navigation also included astrology
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Science diplomacy on display: mobile atomic exhibitions in the cold war: Introduction to Special Issue Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-02-05 Maria Rentetzi, Donatella Germanese
ABSTRACT Despite the increasing interest in science exhibitions, there has been hardly any work on mobile science exhibitions and their role within science diplomacy – a gap this thematic issue is meant to fill. Atomic mobile exhibitions are seen here not only as cultural sites but as multifaceted strategic processes of transnational nuclear history. We move beyond the bipolar Cold War history that
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The ingredients of a successful atomic exhibition in Cold War Italy Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-01-25 Donatella Germanese
ABSTRACT The organization of the mobile atomic exhibition, Mostra Atomica, designed by the United States Information Service to travel through Italy in 1954–55, had to meet technical, scientific, artistic, and political challenges. The head of the group in charge of the exhibition was architect Peter G. Harnden whose pedigree in the intelligence and training in architecture were an ideal match for
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The photographers’ gaze: the Mobile Radioisotope Exhibition in Latin America (1960–1965) Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-01-25 Gisela Mateos, Edna Suárez-Díaz
ABSTRACT During the IAEA’s Mobile Radioisotope Exhibition (1960–1965) through the eventful roads of five Latin American countries (Mexico, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia), a variety of photographs were taken by an unknown Mexican official photographer, and by Josef Obermayer, a staff driver from Vienna. The exhibition carried not only bits of nuclear sciences and technologies, but also the
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Establishing an experimental agenda at the Accademia del Cimento: Carlo Rinaldini’s book lists Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-01-21 Giulia Giannini
ABSTRACT Information on the origins of the Accademia del Cimento is extremely limited. Almost all of the surviving correspondence relating to the year before the Academy began its activities variously concerns print culture. Lists of books (read, studied, purchased, and researched), handwritten notes on old or new publications, vernacular translations of edited passages, and inquiries about new works
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Celebrating the Czechoslovak atom: from ‘Atoms for Peace’ to Expo 58 Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-01-11 Michaela Šmidrkalová
ABSTRACT The Czechoslovak-Soviet exhibition ‘Atoms for Peace’ was held in Prague and Bratislava in 1956. This exhibition became a symbol of Czechoslovak-Soviet ‘friendship’ and Soviet influence on the Czechoslovak nuclear programme. At the Brussels World’s Fair in 1958 (Expo 58), one of the most popular Czechoslovak exhibits was the betatron, which would become a symbol of Czechoslovak nuclear pride
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A German physicist’s travels in Great Britain Julius Plücker’s visits from 1853 to 1866 Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-11-30 Michael Wiescher
ABSTRACT Today, we take international collaborations as a necessity, but 150 years ago, when travel was not so convenient, it involved an enduring and time-consuming challenge. This paper presents letters and reports written by German physicist Julius Plücker to his wife, Antonie née Altstädten describing his travels to Great Britain and France between 1853 and 1866. These letters provide a view into
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Helmholtz and the conservation of energy: contexts of creation and reception Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-11-25 Kathryn M. Olesko
Published in Annals of Science (Vol. 80, No. 1, 2023)
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Renaissance medicine: a short history of European medicine in the sixteenth century Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-10-07 Ian Maclean
Published in Annals of Science (Vol. 80, No. 2, 2023)
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Magic, Science and Religion in Early Modern Europe Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-09-28 Michael Hunter
Published in Annals of Science (Vol. 80, No. 1, 2023)
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On pestilence: a Renaissance treatise on plague Annals of Science (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-08-24 Paula Findlen
Published in Annals of Science (Vol. 79, No. 4, 2022)