Conscientious workmen or booksellers' hacks? The professional identities of science writers in the mid-nineteenth century

Existing scholarship on the debates over expertise in mid-nineteenth-century Britain has demonstrated the importance of popular writings on the sciences to definitions of scientific authority. Yet while men of science might position themselves in opposition to the stereotype of the merely popular writer, the self-identity of the popular writer remained ambiguous. This essay examines the careers of William Charles Linnaeus Martin (1798-1864) and Thomas Milner (1808-ca. 1883) and places them in the context of others who made their living by writing works on the sciences for the general reader. Martin wrote on zoology and Milner moved between astronomy, geology, and geography. The essay unravels the close but ambivalent relationship between the professions of authorship and of science and highlights writing as another aspect of scientific practice. Both writers were moderately financially successful, but Martin's sense of failure and Milner's satisfaction reflect their contrasting images of their professional identity.     

“无中生有”的诀窍开拓了思维的新领域

将近一年前，我收到一封很长的信，其作者声称他发明了一种能凭空制造出某种东西的方法。对此我并不感到大惊小怪。毕竟，在我收到的提出这类有趣想法的来信中，总有那么些人的说法是令人难以置信的。但是，既然科学的基本精神在于要求人们有一个开放的(如果还不是完全通风的)头脑，我还是尽量设法一封不漏地阅读这类信件。     

游戏、游戏活动和技术

游戏活动自文明萌芽时期就有了,随着逐渐扩及群众性娱乐、教学计划和商业推销活动之后,便成了一种空前普遍化的现象。任何游戏都要有对立的双方或多方相互竞争才能进行。这就使游戏活动在临床治疗中找到了用场(“用游戏消除冲突”)並促使人们对游戏展开技术革新——改变游戏设备,但不改变游戏的主旨。这类革新中最新的一项,是微信息处理机或“芯片”。     

電是什么?

在大自然中,電以形形色色的姿態出現。其中最顯著、最普遍的,就是閃電。鄰近北極地帶(如蘇聯的北方)的居民很熟悉這些雄偉的現象:有時候,在夜間的天空上出現了紅、紫、黄、綠各種顏色的寬闊的、明亮的帶子。它們形成火燄般的帷幕,它們離奇地捲起而又展開。這是“北極光”,它的產生就是由於電。在高山上,當空氣相當乾燥的時候,可以看到“電光”。它們表現爲在金屬物體的尖端上的小小的火燄。古     

西点怎样培养领导者?

美国西点陆军学校一向以培养最优秀的领导人才为己任。西点自1802年创校以来,建立了一套独特的教学体系,为国家社会栽培最杰出的领导人才。西点的独特之处是"教给人品德。"一个有品德的领导人,具有一般领导人物所应具有的特质、     

爱因斯坦在长岛的那个夏天

1939年夏天,爱因斯坦到位于纽约东部的长岛度假.而我的祖父--大卫·罗斯曼,在那里经营着罗斯曼百货公司.6月的一天,爱因斯坦走进店里.尽管祖父一眼就认出了他,但还是把他当作一名普通顾客对待.     

德国的大学和科学

你们已经听说我是一个数学家。我的兴趣一直集中于科学本身，而不是它的科学机构和科学组织。不过，今晚我要谈的主要内容是关于德国的大学和科学研究机构，所以我恳求诸位理解我不是谈论这一主题的专家。我是通过我     

Preschoolers' use of morphosyntactic cues to identify generic sentences: indefinite singular noun phrases, tense, and aspect

Generic sentences (e.g., "Birds lay eggs") convey generalizations about entire categories and may thus be an important source of knowledge for children. However, these sentences cannot be identified by a simple rule, requiring instead the integration of multiple cues. The present studies focused on 3- to 5-year-olds' (N = 91) use of morphosyntactic cues--in particular, on whether children can (a) interpret indefinite singular noun phrases (e.g., "a strawberry") as generic and (b) use a verb's tense and aspect (e.g., "A bat sleeps/slept/is sleeping upside down") to determine whether its subject noun phrase is generic. Children demonstrated sensitivity to both cues. Thus, solving the in-principle problem of identifying generics may not be beyond the reach of young children's comprehension skills.