Representing Electrons

A Biographical Approach to Theoretical Entities

Theodore Arabatzis - Collection Science

296 pages, parution le 16/12/2005

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Résumé

Both a history and a metahistory, Representing Electrons focuses on the development of various theoretical representations of electrons from the late 1890s to 1925 and the methodological problems associated with writing about unobservable scientific entities.

Using the electron-or rather its representation-as a historical actor, Theodore Arabatzis illustrates the emergence and gradual consolidation of its representation in physics, its career throughout old quantum theory, and its appropriation and reinterpretation by chemists. As Arabatzis develops this novel biographical approach, he portrays scientific representations as partly autonomous agents with lives of their own. Furthermore, he argues that the considerable variance in the representation of the electron does not undermine its stable identity or existence.

Raising philosophical issues of contentious debate in the history and philosophy of science-namely, scientific realism and meaning change-Arabatzis addresses the history of the electron across disciplines, integrating historical narrative with philosophical analysis in a book that will be a touchstone for historians and philosophers of science and scientists alike.

Sommaire

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Methodological Preliminaries
Why Write Biographies of Theoretical Entities?
Rethinking "The Discovery of the Electron"
The Birth and Infancy of the Representation of the Electron
The Genesis of the Quantum Electron
Between Relativity and Correspondence
"How the Electrons Spend Their Leisure Time": The Chemists' Perspective
Forced to Spin by Uhlenbeck and Goudsmit
Identifying the Electron: Meaning Variance and the Historicity of Scientific Realism
References
Index

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Caractéristiques techniques

	PAPIER
Éditeur(s)	The University of Chicago Press
Auteur(s)	Theodore Arabatzis
Collection	Science
Parution	16/12/2005
Nb. de pages	296
Format	15 x 23
Couverture	Broché
Poids	428g
Intérieur	Noir et Blanc
EAN13	9780226024219
ISBN13	978-0-226-02421-9