Physical Sciences

This site promotes the use of case studies in the teaching of science, something that the authors claim is not yet common. While the site is not particularly historically oriented, some of the case studies they present for use in a classroom are drawn from the history of science, technology and medicine. For instance, there is a short case study of an appearance of "childbed fever" in the nineteenth century and how doctors discovered and understood the disease. All of these case studies are accesible; intended for a junior high, high school or college audience. Concentrating on teaching contemporary scientific fields to students, this site also contains some links to other case study sites and general sites that may focus on the history of science.

This site introduces and gives a brief history of this well-known center at the University of Pittsburgh, which is clearly oriented more toward the philosophy of science than the history of science itself. Two of the center's publications, the Pittsburgh Series in Philosophy and History of Science and the Pittsburgh-Konstanz Series in the Philosophy and History of Science, cover topics germane to those interested in the history of science. There is also a link to the University's Archives of Scientific Philosophy that covers the twentieth century and includes famous philosophers of science such as Carnap and Wittgenstein.

The Chemical Heritage Foundation was founded twenty years ago by the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) to promote public understanding of chemistry, chemical engineering and their uses. This site is the home page for the organization, and mostly covers administrative elements and publicity. The Foundation does maintain a historical library in Philadelphia, and the site links to that library's online catalog of materials. In addition, the Foundation runs the Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry, which gives grants, awards and lectures. Moreover, the Beckman Center has conducted over 270 oral history interviews with chemists and has posted abstracts of those interviews on the site. The abstracts include short biographies of the subjects, and include forms to order full transcripts from the Foundation.

This single, text-only page lists information about the Royal Society of Chemistry Historical Group and its members. A roster of officers heads the page, and a program of its semi-annual meeting follows. At the bottom there is a list of about 20 links to interesting sites in the history of chemistry (and more broadly, science) worldwide and a table of contents for the most recent issue of the Historical Group newsletter (as well as a link to the back issues to 1996). In addition, the site contains a link to a long list of paragraph biographies of chemists, mostly from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Collection of biographies of women mathematicians, searchable and browsable alphabetically or chronologically. Biographies are brief, and often contain photos or drawings, as well as links to interviews or other related online resources. There is also a listing of a number of sites about women in the sciences.

The Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP), founded in San Francisco in 1889, has given the Catherine Wolfe Bruce gold medal for lifetime achievement in the field of astronomy in virtually every year since 1898. This site lists the award recipients alphabetically and by year, and allows the visitor to read short biographies of each winner. Included in these biographies are small photographs. There are also links to scanned articles about the award and its history, mainly in the astronomical journal, Mercury.

This is the home page for Oxford University's Museum of the History of Science. An overview provides a sense of the museum's collection, and a paragraph describes its history (and the history of the building it is housed in) since 1683. There are seven excellent online exhibits with numerous graphics and photographs, including pieces on the history of photography, mathematics and astronomy. All are composed for a lay audience. For researchers, a remarkable searchable database of over 13,000 objects allows visitors to find and view artifacts in the museum's collection. These objects span the entire history of science and technology, and many of them are extremely rare. Another section of the site features some of the best portraits, instruments and illustrations in the archive.

This site is essentially a set of links to materials of interest to members of the British Society for the History of Science. Approximately 20 links cover the publications of the organization, including a newsletter, monographs and the British Journal for the History of Science, three prizes given by the group, special offers for members, and notes about its membership and administration. There are also educational links, including a list of courses offered on the history of science in British universities, policy papers and methodological statements for teachers of the history of science, and lists of other sites that cover the history of science.

This site, established by a collector and written from a collector's point of view (and written for a general audience), examines mainly mechanical calculating machines. A brief history with several photographs describes the origin and development of the calculating machine from its invention by Blaise Pascal to the twentieth century. There is a classification scheme (7 rough types) and photographs of representative models, as well as 6 classic advertisements for calculating machines from the 1930s to the 1950s. Short essays contain several other photographs of machines. In addition, an applet lets you simulate the operation of a 1885 Felt &Tarrant "Comptometer" adding machine. An extensive list of links (over 40 entries) takes the visitor to other sites on the history of calculating machines, and a bibliography lists important printed works on the subject.