This volume presents Professor Cohen's original interpretation of the revolution that marked the beginnings of modern science and set Newtonian science as the model for the highest level of achievement in other branches of science. It shows that Newton developed a special kind of relation between abstract mathematical constructs and the physical systems that we observe in the world around us by means of experiment and critical observation. The heart of the radical Newtonian style is the construction on the mind of a mathematical system that has some features in common with the physical world; this system was then modified when the deductions and conclusions drawn from it are tested against the physical universe. Using this system Newton was able to make his revolutionary innovations in celestial mechanics and, ultimately, create a new physics of central forces and the law of universal gravitation. Building on his analysis of Newton's methodology, Professor Cohen explores the fine structure of revolutionary change and scientific creativity in general. This is done by developing the concept of scientific change as a series of transformations of existing ideas. It is shown that such transformation is characteristic of many aspects of the sciences and that the concept of scientific change by transformation suggests a new way of examining the very nature of scientific creativity.
Cohen's exploration seeks to uncover nothing less than the nature of all scientific revolutions, the stages by which they occur, their time scale, specific criteria for determining whether or not there has been a revolution, and the creative factors in producing a revolutionary new idea.
From the pyramids to mortality tables, Galileo to Florence Nightingale, a vibrant history of numbers and the birth of statistics. The great historian of science I. B. Cohen explores how numbers have come to assume a leading role in science, in the operations and structure of government, in marketing, and in many other aspects of daily life. Consulting and collecting numbers has been a feature of human affairs since antiquity—taxes, head counts for military service—but not until the Scientific Revolution in the twelfth century did social numbers such as births, deaths, and marriages begin to be analyzed. Cohen shines a new light on familiar figures such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Charles Dickens; and he reveals Florence Nightingale to be a passionate statistician. Cohen has left us with an engaging and accessible history of numbers, an appreciation of the essential nature of statistics.
Cohen argues that the emergence of the United States as the world's sole superpower and the process of globalization have failed to remove the importance of geography as a political and strategic factor of great import. After laying out the structural basis for his theory of geopolitical theory, he launches into an examination of how geopolitical realities have developed since World War II, a period that witnessed greater change than the preceding two and a half centuries. He then turns his attention to the meat of the book, separate examinations of the each of the major world regions, including examinations of the important countries and their individual geopolitical realities.
A brilliant short story collection by awarded novelist and former Vogel winner Bernard Cohen.Parked in by furious rich people, mid-divorce, a man misses his lunchtime gambling session. All the girls named Ella form a diagonal across the teacher's new classroom. Diseased cattle burn in fields around the country &– it is a cameraman's role to frame the images for TV. A swagman jumps into a billabong, or was he pushed?Bernard Cohen's stories are filled with incisive perspectives, captivating wit and dark, sharp humour.
Examines the scientific work of Benjamin Franklin in fields ranging from heat to astronomy ; provides accounts of the theoretical backgroung of his science, the experiments he performed, and their influence throughout Europe and the U.S.
This famous book, first published in 1929 was considerably revised and enlarged in its fourth edition, which is being reprinted now. This edition had the addition of a postscript by Professor I. Bernard Cohen containing a list of reading, with comments on them to guide the readers.
One of the fruits of the scientific revolution was the idea of a social science that would operate in ways comparable to the newly triumphant natural sciences. This text offers a historical perspective on the interactions between the social and natural sciences.
Written by one of the world's leading political geographers, this fully revised and updated textbook examines the dramatic changes wrought by ideological and economic forces unleashed by the end of the Cold War. Saul Bernard Cohen considers these forces in the context of their human and physical settings and explores their geographical influence on foreign policy and international relations.
Dan Kramer, a college professor and a former rabbinical student, adores his handsome, athletic son Lance. Sitting in the bleachers in the town park, Kramer could watch Lance for hours. Observing his son's self assurance and grace on the playing field, Kramer recalls his own experience as a poorly coordinated boy, blind without his thick glasses. He saw himself standing with his elementary school classmates in the chilly schoolyard during gym, watching the captains -- always the same two quietly confident boys -- select their teams. The best athletes were picked first and only the weakest players remained. Feeling increasingly exposed as the number dwindled, Kramer yearned for the ordeal to come to its familiar conclusion -- his standing alone, picked last with grudging reluctance. Now an adult, Kramer seeks a second chance at self-realization through his son. Kramer and his wife Claire learn that Lance and his friend Andy have broken into a synagogue to steal Torah ornaments from the holy ark. Kramer meets with the rabbi, Herschel Himmelshine, to arrange for the return of the ornaments. The rabbi was a schoolmate and friend of Kramers when they were both rabbinical students and Kramer pleads with Himmelshine not to contact the police. Himmelshine consents, and their old friendship is renewed, with life-altering consequences for Kramer, including the betrayal of the son he adores.
In Democracies and Foreign Policy, however, Bernard Cohen offers the first detailed comparison of two Western democracies--the United States and the Netherlands--and their patterns of public participation in foreign policy. To assess the influence of citizens on the foreign policies of each nation, he examines the institutions that both shape and express public opinion--national legislative bodies, media of communication, organized interest groups--and searches for the roots of these institutions in the national political systems. Cohen's thought-provoking results demand a reassessment of aspects of foreign-policy making that have been taken for granted in each of these countries. Cohen finds, for example, that within the United States the media have significant power in setting agendas, while the political parties remain relatively mute on foreign-policy issues. In the Netherlands, on the other hand, the media have a lesser role, with the government instead sampling the opinion of the more outspoken political parties and party members. The Dutch Foreign Ministry, remaining walled off from the public, has a much freer hand in foreign policy. Cohen also finds that the U.S. State Department is much more sensitive to public opinion than its Dutch counterpart but, surprisingly, is less successful in understanding and coping with demands from its public.
Biography of Howard Aiken, a major figure of the early digital era, by a major historian of science who was also a colleague of Aiken's at Harvard. Howard Hathaway Aiken (1900-1973) was a major figure of the early digital era. He is best known for his first machine, the IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator or Harvard Mark I, conceived in 1937 and put into operation in 1944. But he also made significant contributions to the development of applications for the new machines and to the creation of a university curriculum for computer science. This biography of Aiken, by a major historian of science who was also a colleague of Aiken's at Harvard, offers a clear and often entertaining introduction to Aiken and his times. Aiken's Mark I was the most intensely used of the early large-scale, general-purpose automatic digital computers, and it had a significant impact on the machines that followed. Aiken also proselytized for the computer among scientists, scholars, and businesspeople and explored novel applications in data processing, automatic billing, and production control. But his most lasting contribution may have been the students who received degrees under him and then took prominent positions in academia and industry. I. Bernard Cohen argues convincingly for Aiken's significance as a shaper of the computer world in which we now live.
Thomas Jefferson was the only president who could read and understand Newton's Principia. Benjamin Franklin is credited with establishing the science of electricity. John Adams had the finest education in science that the new country could provide, including "Pnewmaticks, Hydrostaticks, Mechanicks, Staticks, Opticks." James Madison, chief architect of the Constitution, peppered his Federalist Papers with references to physics, chemistry, and the life sciences. For these men science was an integral part of life--including political life. This is the story of their scientific education and of how they employed that knowledge in shaping the political issues of the day, incorporating scientific reasoning into the Constitution.
Deals with the establishment of modern science from the age of Leonardo, Vesalius, and Copernicus to the time of Lavoisier, Benjamin Franklin, Volta, Linnaeus, Albrecht von Haller, and Newton. Concludes with a section on science and society, which show us the the magnificent scientific achievement, Diderot's "Encyclopédie", and which culminates in the belief in progress and the limitlessness of science.
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