Abstracts

"Bolzano's Logical Syntax"
Sandra LaPointe (McMaster)
February 10 • 3–5 PM • BUCH A102

Abstract: Key to the progress of mathematics at the turn of the twentieth century was the elaboration of logical notation that would be appropriate for expressing basic mathematical concepts. In this paper, I argue that Bolzano was first, well before Frege and Russell, to develop the logical resources to account for relational statements that involve multiple quantifiers thus opening the path to a more rigorous analysis of mathematical notions.

"The Philosophical Breakfast Club and the Invention of the Scientist"
Laura J. Snyder (St John's)
(Sponsored by The UBC Nineteenth-Century Studies Association, Department of History, and Science and Technology Studies Graduate Program)
February 16 • 4-6 PM • IBLC, The Lilooet Room

Abstract. In 1833, when the poet S.T. Coleridge stood up at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and demanded that its members stop calling themselves “natural philosophers,” one man was ready with an alternative title: “scientist.” In inventing the name for the modern man of science, William Whewell was continuing a task he and three of his friends had set for themselves two decades earlier. After meeting at Cambridge University in 1812, Whewell, Charles Babbage, John Herschel and Richard Jones discussed the sorry state of science at “philosophical breakfasts” held on Sundays after the compulsory college chapel services. They vowed to bring about a new scientific revolution. Each of the four would go on to accomplish great things: Babbage invented the first computer, Herschel was a great astronomer who also co-invented photography, Jones became an economist of note who influenced Karl Marx, and Whewell spearheaded international research on the tides. But their influence goes farther: by the end of their lives these four had succeeded, even beyond their wildest dreams, in transforming science. The amateur natural philosopher—the country curate collecting beetles in his spare hours, or the industrialist studying the chemistry of flax-bleaching—became the professional scientist, who was trained at the university, belonged to specialized societies, published in scientific journals, and, eventually, could earn a living by scientific work. The invention of the modern scientist was brought about through the decades-long friendship of four remarkable men.