January 13, 2017 Saturday
Bedtime Story
Somerville, Whewell, Connexion, 1834 and "Scientist"
Somerville’s second book came out in 1834
which happened to be a popular science book.
It was titled: On the Connexion of Physical
Sciences and is often referred in the condensed form Connexion.
Connexion is a medieval English form of the
present word connection having its origin in French and then Latin.
Connexion sold 15,000 copies and went on to
become one of the best sellers of nineteenth century getting translated into
several European languages.
This book was the synthesis of all the
contemporary and updated knowledge in sciences as diverse as astronomy,
physics, chemistry, botany and geology.
When the book came out its success and its
brilliance got the attention of another English polymath William Whewell who
interestingly also happened to be a priest and theologian.
He was also a mathematician who is known
for his Whewell equation, the equation that describes a curve without actually
referring to any chosen coordinate point.
He was son of a mere carpenter but his
endeavors in study were spread across subjects as diverse as poetry to
mathematics, religion to astronomy, and economics to mechanics.
But even more than his fame for being a
polymath of such a stature, his greatest contribution to science and perhaps in
a sense indirectly to literature came through his gift of wordsmithing.
Now you may well know who are blacksmiths
or metal smiths.
These are men who forge iron and steel
using their tools to produce useful objects for us.
Wordsmithing is the use of language or
letters to coin new words.
Some may chose to use the word neologism
instead of wordsmithing.
You will be surprised to know that until
the time of Whewell the word “scientist” did not exist.
The men (they are mostly men) who indulged
in sciences were called either “natural philosophers” or “men of science”.
Now Whewell was greatly impressed with
Somerville’s Connexion and wrote an anonymous review of the book in the journal
Quarterly Review.
It was in this review where Whewell for the
first time used the word “scientist” to describe Somerville and that was for
two reasons.
Firstly calling a woman “man of science” would
obviously sound unbefitting.
Secondly and more importantly, as the work
of Somerville was integrative and versatile, he needed a more general term and
thus he coined the word “scientist”.
So in order to describe Somerville for the
first time in 1834 in his anonymous review Whewell used the term “scientist.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the International
Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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