University

Eötvös Loránd munkái és méltatása (Válogatás Eötvös Loránd tudományos és tudománypolitikai munkáiból, Eötvös Loránd és Eötvös József levelezése, versek, kinevezési dokumentumok, Eötvös Loránd méltatása, bibliográfiák)

Sherry Turkle is Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT and the founder (2001) and current director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, a center of research and reflection on the evolving connections between people and artifacts in the co-construction of identity http://web.mit.edu/sturkle/techself. The Initiative looks at a range of technologies including robotics, psychopharmacology, video games, and simulation software and their effects on human development. Dr. Turkle has written numerous articles on psychoanalysis and culture and on the "subjective side" of people's relationships with technology, especially computers. She received a joint doctorate in sociology and personality psychology from Harvard University, and is a licensed clinical psychologist. She is the author of Psychoanalytic Politics: Jacques Lacan and Freud's French Revolution (Basic Books, 1978; MIT Press paper, 1981; second revised edition, Guilford Press, 1992);The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit (Simon and Schuster, 1984; Touchstone paper, 1985; second revised edition, MIT Press, forthcoming); and Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet (Simon and Schuster, November 1995; Touchstone paperback, 1997).

Timothy Lenoir is professor of history and chair of the Program in History and Philosophy of Science. Lenoir is the author of The Strategy of Life: Teleology and Mechanics in Nineteenth Century German Biology, Dordrecht and Boston: D. Reidel, 1982; paperback edition by the University of Chicago Press, 1989, which examines the development of non-Darwinian theories of evolution, particularly in the German context during the nineteenth century. His other books include: Politik im Tempel der Wissenschaft: Forschung und Machtausübung im deutschen Kaiserreich, Frankfurt/Main: Campus Verlag, 1992; Instituting Science: The Cultural Production of Scientific Disciplines, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997, a volume which examines the formation of disciplines and the role of public institutions in the construction of scientific knowledge; an edited volume, Inscribing Science: Scientific Texts and the Materiality of Communication, appeared in spring 1998 from Stanford Press.

Utilizing over 800 scanned documents, photographs, audio clips and video excerpts, this website narrates the breathless details of the pursuit of the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA. Scattered throughout the project are images of a number of very important and extremely rare items, all of which are held within The Valley Library's Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers, and many of which have not been previously displayed. Also featured are two original documents hitherto unknown to scholars interested in this period. It is expected that this website will serve as a primary reference point for individuals interested in the history of DNA -- both researchers and lay people alike.

The Sea and the Cities project focuses on the environmental history of urban water pollution and protection in the Baltic Sea region in the 19th and the 20th century.

This site documents the initial period of the discovery and development of insulin, 1920-1925, by presenting over seven thousand page images reproducing original documents ranging from laboratory notebooks and charts, correspondence, writings, and published papers to photographs, awards, clippings, scrapbooks, printed ephemera and artifacts. Drawing mainly on the Banting, Best and related collections housed at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library and the Archives and Records Management Services at the University of Toronto, it also includes significant holdings from the Aventis Pasteur (formerly Connaught) Archives, and the personal collection of Dr. Henry Best.

Current Research
The Structures of Computation: Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science, 1950-70 traces the efforts to develop a mathematical model of computation that adequately represents the possibilities and limits of the digital electronic stored-program computer. Beginning with the initial models, the Turing machine and the switching circuit, the book recounts the origins of formal language theory, computational complexity, and formal semantics. It looks beyond the conceptual history to examine the formation of theoretical computer science both as a recognized discipline in its own right and as a field of mathematics. The book thereby constitutes a dual case study of the historical problems of mathematization and of the formation of new scientific disciplines. Some of the themes are explored in my recent articles on history of computing.

We would like to gather important facts including what happened in the last decades, years, or even weeks. In addition, we want to provide interpretations - yours and ours. In the spirit of stimulating discussions, we will juxtapose different accounts of the same episode. You may decide that only one is right - you might find several accounts possible. Compare for example the following two brief explanations of the origin of the modern discipline of materials science and engineering:

At the International Conference on the History of Computing held in Los Alamos in 1976, R.W. Hamming placed his proposed agenda in the title of his paper[1]: "We Would Know What They Thought When They Did It." He pleaded for a history of computing that pursued the contextual development of ideas, rather than merely listing names, dates, and places of "firsts". Moreover, he exhorted historians to go beyond the documents to "informed speculation" about the results of undocumented practice. What people actually did and what they thought they were doing may well not be accurately reflected in what they wrote and what they said they were thinking. His own experience had taught him that.

Perhaps more than any other contemporary American scientist Stephen Jay Gould has presented the modes, implications, benefits, and shortcomings of science to a literate public. As an inventive and productive scholar he has shaped and participated in crucial debates of the biological and geological sciences, particularly with regard to the theory of evolution, the interpretation of fossil evidence, and the meaning of diversity and change in biology. As the readership for his nearly twenty books and hundreds of essays, reviews, and articles has grown he has become one of the most popular and well-known writers and lecturers on scientific topics. He has distinguished himself by elaborating his critique of contemporary evolutionary theory via an eclectic range of discourse, deriving inspiration from his personal reflections across an astonishing array of historical and humanistic disciplines, popular culture, and sports.