Historian

The LMTO method [58, 79] can be considered to be the linear version of the KKR teclmique. According to official LMTO historians, the method has now reached its third generation [79] the first starting with Andersen in 1975 [58], the second connnonly known as TB-LMTO. In the LMTO approach, the wavefimction is expanded in a basis of so-called muffin-tin orbitals. These orbitals are adapted to the potential by constmcting them from solutions of the radial Scln-ddinger equation so as to fomi a minimal basis set. Interstitial properties are represented by Hankel fiinctions, which means that, in contrast to the LAPW teclmique, the orbitals are localized in real space. The small basis set makes the method fast computationally, yet at the same time it restricts the accuracy. The localization of the basis fiinctions diminishes the quality of the description of the wavefimction in die interstitial region. 

Natural resins were probably known to early people, who recognized them as exudates from trees. Collection and use of these resins have been recorded by early Roman and Greek historians. Many products have been collected by the same methods throughout history to the present time. However, increased labor costs and competition from synthetic resins have reduced the demand for some natural resins, so they have become less available. In other cases, such as that of rosin, the traditional collection of gum from trees has been supplemented or replaced by isolation from other sources, such as paper pulping and tree stumps. 

The concept of an invisible college , mentioned by Ziman, is the creation of Derek de Sofia Price, an influential historian of science and herald of scientomet-rics (Yagi et al. 1996), who wrote at length about such colleges and their role in the scientific enterprise (Price 1963, 1986). Price was one of the first to apply quantitative... 

About the time that Ostwald moved to Leipzig, he established contact with two scientists who are regarded today as the other founding fathers of physical chemistry a Dutchman, Jacobus van t Hoff (1852-1911) and a Swede, Svante Arrhenius (1859 1927). Some historians would include Robert Bunsen (1811-1899) among the founding fathers, but he was really concerned with experimental techniques, not with chemical theory. 

The beginnings of the enormous field of solid-state physics were concisely set out in a fascinating series of recollections by some of the pioneers at a Royal Society Symposium (Mott 1980), with the participation of a number of professional historians of science, and in much greater detail in a large, impressive book by a number of historians (Hoddeson et al. 1992), dealing in depth with such histories as the roots of solid-state physics in the years before quantum mechanics, the quantum theory of metals and band theory, point defects and colour centres, magnetism, mechanical behaviour of solids, semiconductor physics and critical statistical theory. 

In the above-mentioned 1980 symposium (p. 8), the historians Hoddeson and Baym outline the development of the quantum-mechanical electron theory of metals from 1900 to 1928, most of it in the last two years of that period. The topic took off when Pauli, in 1926, examined the theory of paramagnetism in metals and proved, in a famous paper (Pauli 1926) that the observations of weak paramagnetism in various metals implied that metals obeyed Fermi-Dirac statistics - i.e., that the electrons in... 

Stephen Keith, a historian of science, has examined the development of this parepisteme (Keith 1998), complete with the stops and starts caused by fierce competition between individuals and the discouragement of some of them, while a shorter account of the evolution of crystal-growing skill can be found in the first... 

There has been some dispute among professional historians of science as to who should be entitled to write a history such as this. Those trained as historians are understandably apt to resent the presumption of working scientists, in the evening of their days, in trying to take the bread from the historians mouths. We, the superannuated scientists, are decried by some historians as whigs , mere uncritical... 

Next, I want to acknowledge my deep debt to the late Professor Cyril Stanley Smith, metallurgist and historian, who taught me much of what 1 know about the proper approach to the history of a technological discipline and gave me copies of many of his incomparable books, which are repeatedly cited in mine. 

Professor Colin Russell, historian of science and emeritus professor at the Open University, gave me helpful counsel on the history of chemistry and showed me how to take a philosophical attitude to the disagreements that beset the relation between practising scientists and historians of science. I am grateful to him. 

According to historian Vaclav Smil, the destructive energy of military weapons has increased by sixteen orders ol magnitude over the past five thousand years. The exploitation of inanimate energy sources... 

Geologists can be thought of as the historians of the earth. Ffistory is important to exploration success. When a well is drilled, a number of devices are lowered down the well to log or identify the different formations that have been penetrated. The geologist uses the logs from many different wells to put together an interpretation of the geology between wells. A... 

Historians have wondered for many years whether Thomas Jefferson fathered a child by Sally Hennings. DNAfingerprinting evidence obtained in 1998 is inconclusive but strongly suggestive. 

This success of the atomic theory is not surprising to a historian of science. The atomic theory was first deduced from the laws of chemical composition. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, an English scientist named John Dalton wondered why chemical compounds display such simple weight relations. He proposed that perhaps each element consists of discrete particles and perhaps each compound is composed of molecules that can be formed only by a unique combination of these particles. Suddenly many facts of chemistry became understandable in terms of this proposal. The continued success of the atomic theory in correlating a multitude of new observations accounts for its survival. Today, many other types of evidence can be cited to support the atomic postulate, but the laws of chemical composition still provide the cornerstone for our belief in this theory of the structure of matter. 

I was also familiar with the work of science historian Stephen Brush who had argued that in most important cases, such as relativity theory and quantum mechanics, and contrary to popular opinion, it was successful accommodations that had swayed scientists of the time rather than any dramatic predictions. 

But this characterisation is difficult to reconcile with the historical record. Ihde, the only historian of chemistry quoted by either Maher or Lipton, identifies Mendeleev s famous paper of 1871 as the major turning-point ... 

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