Edited by W. F. Bynum and Roy Porter
‘... an exquisite treasury of scientific thought and sensibilities?’ — Manya Chylinski, Library Journal
The original words announcing great scientific discoveries, from the first ‘Eureka!’ to the cloning of Dolly the sheep, can all be found in this dictionary. Put together over 15 years with the assistance of a distinguished team of specialist advisers, it includes full author descriptions and exact sources. Scholarly but accessible, it presents the human face of science, as scientists reflect on achievements and failures in their own lives and those of others. Darwin describes natural selection and assesses the pros and cons of marriage; James Clerk Maxwell constructs an electric but poetic Valentine as well as his ‘demon’. In this book you can find out who believed that ‘Science and everyday life cannot and should not be separate’, and who liked to ask what he would do if he were ‘a carbon atom or a sodium atom’.
W. F. Bynum is Professor Emeritus at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, University College London; the late Roy Porter was Professor of the Social History of Medicine at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine.
ISBN-13: 9780198614432
ISBN-10: 0198614438
Publishing history: First published in paperback 2006
Copyright: Selection and arrangement © W. F. Bynum, Roy Porter 2005, 2006; Introduction © W. F. Bynum 2005, 2006
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