The Names of Science: Terminology and Language in the History of the Natural Sciences

The Names of Science is a book about the relationship between science and language through history with an emphasis on the technical terms used in science and in many cases originating in specific scientific and historical contexts. It pays serious attention to the historical dimension and to the concrete research works in which scientists indirectly but effectively have acted as linguists. Apart from an introductory list of useful linguistic terms, the book is structured in six large chapters which covers important phases in the history of science, principally but not exclusively dealing with the terminology of physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, and cosmology. It also considers, if only briefly, how English—and not, say, Latin or French—developed to become the internationally accepted language of science. Whereas Chapter 1 is mostly of a more general nature, among other things dealing with linguistic concepts such as eponomy, metaphors, oxymorons, and acronomy, the following chapters investigate word formations and technical language in select areas of specific sciences from the Renaissance to the present. Chapters 2–4 are primarily about words and names in the physical sciences covering electromagnetism, thermodynamics, radioactivity, quantum mechanics, elementary particles, and much more. Chemistry, a rich resource for historical-linguistic studies, is dealt with in Chapter 5, where Lavosier’s reform of chemical nomenclature is given particular attention. Finally, the last chapter is devoted to the words and concepts associated with the development of the astronomical sciences including cosmology as it emerged in the twentieth century.