Marc J Ratcliff

The Quest for the Invisible

Microscopy in the Enlightenment

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

This study offers a definitive account of the state of microscopy in the eighteenth century, of the main concerns of those involved in the field and how microscopists learned to communicate their findings to each other. It will be essential reading for all historians of microscopy and for those studying life sciences of the modern period.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: CRC Press
• Seitenzahl: 332
• Erscheinungstermin: 20. Mai 2009
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 234mm x 156mm x 19mm
• Gewicht: 644g
• ISBN-13: 9780754661504
• ISBN-10: 0754661504
• Artikelnr.: 44972949

Autorenporträt

Marc J. Ratcliff is based at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. In 2005 he won the History of Science Society Derek Price/Rod Webster Award for a paper on Abraham Trembley published in ISIS. He is currently working on twentieth-century psychology.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents: Introduction: reasons for a new historiography; Part 1 The
Definition of Good Microscopical Objects 1680-1740: Production and
visibility of microscopes in the first half of the 18th century; The study
of animalcules at the turn of the 18th century; Insects, hermaphrodite and
ambiguity. Part 2 The Break with the Past 1740-1760s: Towards marketing
strategies for the microscope in the second half of the 18th century;
Abraham Trembly, the polyp and new directions for microscopical research;
The disputes over authority and microscopical observations. Part 3
Infusoria and Microscopical Experiments: The True Invisible Objects
1760s-1800s: The quantifying spirit in microscopical research and 'keeping
up' with invisible objects; The emergence of the systematics of
infusoria; From spontaneous generation to the limits of life: the
microscopical experimentalist research from the 1760s to 1800; Conclusion;
Bibliography; Indexes.