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Publishers are now reporting “chapter downloads” on books. What this means is uncertain, but having some downloads seems to be better than zero downloads. Springer began collecting this data in 1911. The following are the numbers for our 2008 biography ‘Treasure Your Exceptions.’ The Science and Life of William Bateson.
2011 278
2012 274
2013 579
2014 2,336
In the same period, my textbook Evolutionary Bioinformatics (2011), which has a lot of history, received 14806 chapter downloads, of which 6576 were in 2014.
Very true about Springer, not that they pay out on chapter downloads. I report here the chapter downloads for my Descartes-agonistes: Physico-mathematics, Method and Mechanism 1618-33, for a reason given below.
2014 1,791
2013 884
2012 87
More importantly, let me report that this book was chosen, along with two others, for detailed discussion (two hours each) at a recent meeting of the occasional Princeton/Sorbonne ‘Seminaire Descartes’, in Paris Saturday May 23. Daniel Garber, Roger Ariew and Sophie Roux were my critics. A fine time was had by all.
Just came across the details of the ‘Seminaire Descartes’ online: http://mathesis.hypotheses.org/seminaire-descartes/seminaire-descartes-6e-annee
Heading to University of Oklahoma next week for a research fellowship. Excited to be there during their ‘Galileo’s World’ exhibit. See: https://galileo.ou.edu/
AAHPSSS members will be interested in two pieces of news. First we at the Unit for HPS, Sydney are happy to welcome a new overseas Affiliate, Dr Raffaele ‘Raf’ Pisano, University of Lille. He is a prolific publisher in the history of physics, 16th to 19th century, with well established historiographical/epistemological views about history of physics. He is well connected in the HPS profession. For example he is Vice President of the Joint Teaching Commission of the History of Science and Philosophy of Science International Unions. Secondly, Raf informs me that he and his colleague Paolo Bussotti now have a contract with OUP to produce an English translation and critical edition of the so-called ‘Jesuit Edition’ of Newton’s Principia. This work, originally published in four volumes in Geneva in 1739-42, sits at a crossroads in the evolution of mathematics and mathematical physics in the two generations after the Principia first edition. It is full of revealing commentaries and essays explicating Newton’s mathematical physics. Pisano and Bussotti plan to add a fifth volume with a detailed historical/epistemological analysis and commentary of their own. By the way, it is the Jesuit Edition ‘so-called’ because the Editors, Thomas Le Seur (1703–1770) and Francois Jacquier (1711–1788) and Jean Louis Calandrini (1703–1758) were not actually Jesuits. Pisano and Bussotti’s fifth volume will also explore the biographies, contexts and motives of these little known but important early 18th century exponents of Newtonian mechanics. Since history of physical science is alive and well in Oz, let us hope that we will soon see Raf here for a history and historical epistemology of physics fun fest.