Professional Association

The Mercurians began meeting in 1986 for the purpose of generating networks between people who share work and interests in the history of communication technologies, defining the field broadly. Our activities include publishing a semi-annual newsletter, Antenna, meeting annually at Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) conferences, organizing paper sessions for SHOT meetings, and pursuing contacts between meetings. Antenna serves both as a clearing house for readers and an informal forum for their ideas. We welcome contributions, including notices and queries about Mercurians' projects as well as short essays on their work. Antenna includes book reviews and other materials about conferences, museums, publications, archives, funding, and other pertinent materials.

The story of physics in the 20th century unfolds like a splendid tapestry teeming with people, ideas, and things. In order to find patterns in this tangle, it helps to pick out five color-coded story-lines that stretch like broad, horizontal ribbons from beginning to end. The Cosmic, Human, and Atomic scales correspond to separate branches of physics. Up until 1900, classical physics dealt mostly with phenomena on the human scale, but for a description of the cosmic and atomic realms, new mathematical languages had to be developed. The three story-lines remained fairly distinct until the 1960s, when they finally began to converge in a synthesis that represents one of the great triumphs of modern physics.

The Philosophy of Science Association aims to further studies and free discussion from diverse standpoints in the field of philosophy of science. To this end, the PSA engages in activities such as: the publishing of periodicals, essays and monographs in this field; sponsoring conventions and meetings; and the awarding of prizes for distinguished work in the field.

The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) established the Ernmy Noether Lectures to honor women who have made fundamental and sustained contributions to the mathematical sciences. These one-hour expository lectures are presented at the Joint Mathematics Meetings each January. Emmy Noether was one of the great mathematicians of her time, someone who worked and struggled for what she loved and believed in. Her life and work remain a tremendous inspiration.

If this Discourse appear too long to be read at once, it may be divided into six Parts: and, in the first, will be found various considerations touching the Sciences; in the second, the principal rules of the Method which the Author has discovered, in the third, certain of the rules of Morals which he has deduced from this Method; in the fourth, the reasonings by which he establishes the existence of God and of the Human Soul, which are the foundations of his Metaphysic; in the fifth, the order of the Physical questions which he has investigated, and, in particular, the explication of the motion of the heart and of some other difficulties pertaining to Medicine, as also the difference between the soul of man and that of the brutes; and, in the last, what the Author believes to be required in order to greater advancement in the investigation of Nature than has yet been made, with the reasons that have induced him to write.

Many people view genetic engineering as a relatively new field of scientific pursuit, but in fact the techniques that are in use today are the result of a series of landmark discoveries that were made over a period spanning more than 125 years. This article presents a timeline of key discoveries that have culminated in the human genome project, an international effort to decipher the sequence of the 3 billion base pair subunits of DNA which reside in the chromosomes of human beings.

Timeline: Beginning with the Age of Discovery, this resource lists events chronologically and provides an excellent overview and context for events occuring in the nuclear age.

Diseases of the uro-genital tract are as old as the human species itself. Archaeological findings, as well as the very first writings, indicate that our ancestors were plagued by the same kind of discomforts routinely encountered in modern urological practice. For example, in a 5,000-year-old mummy of a child, a huge bladder stone was found. Circumcision and removal of the penile foreskin was probably the first operation ever performed on a routine basis. The importance of urinary stone disease and the dangers of treating bladder stones were already fully recognised by Hippocrates, `The Father of Medicine`. Hippocrates recognised the importance of the analysis and judgment of human excreta. This started a tradition of many ages of urine-analysis by inspection (uroscopy) and tasting.

The Pediatric History Center, located in the Bakwin Library of the American Academy of Pediatrics, collects books, articles, manuscripts, photographs, audiotapes, videotapes, films, artifacts, organizational records, oral histories and other materials related to the history of pediatrics in the United States and Canada and the history of the Academy itself. Through its Oral History Program, the Center conducts interviews with selected pediatricians and other leaders in the advancement of children's health care, preserving the recordings and transcripts. The Pediatric History Center preserves and organizes these materials to make them available for use by Academy members, staff, and outside researchers. Assistance with historical research is available through the archivist; however, individuals wishing to conduct extensive research are encouraged to make an appointment to visit the archives.

Shareware was born simultaneously in two places. In Tiburon, California, it was born as the program PC-Talk, fathered by Andrew Fluegelman. In Bellevue, Washington, it sprang to life as PC-File, the brain child of Jim Knopf. This is my half of the story. I'm Jim Knopf, the father of Shareware. This is the story I used to call "How did I get into this mess?"
I needed a program to print mailing labels for a local church congregation. I had an Apple computer, so I wrote the program in Applesoft BASIC. I wanted more than just a label printing program, so I wrote a general purpose database program. I liked what I produced so much the program itself became a hobby - something I continued to work on and improve in my spare time.