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Program: Visualizing the invisible. Representations of Matter and Motion since t...
  • Title (NL) Visualizing the invisible. Representations of Matter and Motion since the Renaissance
  • Period 11 / 2006 - 10 / 2010
  • Status Current
Abstract
bullet Abstract First, there exists a definite need for a better understanding, to be gained from historical case studies, of how scientific imagery and physical and chemical theories depend on each other (projects 1 and 2 of this program). Second, we need a more developed and specific typology of scientific iconography (project 3 of this program). The three projects of this program are all concerned with the representation of invisible entities in the period from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. Project 1 investigates into the representation of motion in a number of kinetic and dynamic models. Project 2 studies the evolution of chemical models of hypothetical atomic and molecular structures. Project 3, finally, aims at a synthesis in the form of a handbook containing a chronology and typology of physical and chemical illustrations. What links these three projects is, first, their common embedding in the mechanical philosophy, which set off from the idea that all natural phenomena could be explained by means of the motion of invisible material particles. Moreover, the invisible entities that are dealt with here belong to two interrelated types. The first type, which forms the subject of project 1, includes magnitudes such as speed or time, which are invisible inasmuch as they are nonspatial, and phenomena such as impact, acceleration, or projectile motion, which being diachronic, are not liable to being captured by an unmoving picture. The second type, with which project 2 is concerned, represents entities that are invisible for a different reason. Since the revival of atomism in the seventeenth century, chemical and physical theories of matter relied on structures that were said to be invisible because of their minuteness.
Related organisations
bullet Secretariat Kernleerstoel Geschiedenis van de Filosofie (RU)
bullet Financier Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek - NWO (NWO)
Related people
bullet Researcher Prof.dr. C.H. Lüthy
bullet Researcher Dr. C.R. Palmerino-Lüthy
bullet Project leader Prof.dr. J.M.M.H. Thijssen
Classification
bullet D32000 Philosophy
Data Supplier: Website Radboud Universiteit
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