The Triumph of Numbers
How Counting Shaped Modern Life
Published on 17. July 2006
224 pages
978-0-393-25427-3 (ISBN)
Description
From the pyramids to mortality tables, Galileo to Florence Nightingale, a vibrant history of numbers and the birth of statistics.
The great historian of science I. B. Cohen explores how numbers have come to assume a leading role in science, in the operations and structure of government, in marketing, and in many other aspects of daily life. Consulting and collecting numbers has been a feature of human affairs since antiquity—taxes, head counts for military service—but not until the Scientific Revolution in the twelfth century did social numbers such as births, deaths, and marriages begin to be analyzed. Cohen shines a new light on familiar figures such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Charles Dickens; and he reveals Florence Nightingale to be a passionate statistician. Cohen has left us with an engaging and accessible history of numbers, an appreciation of the essential nature of statistics.More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Product notice
Windows
ISBN-13
978-0-393-25427-3 (9780393254273)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
08/2006
WW Norton & Co
€17.20
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Person
I. Bernard Cohen (1914?2003) was Victor S. Thomas Professor, Emeritus, of the History of Science at Harvard University, where he taught from 1942 to 1984. He was the first American to receive the degree of Ph.D. in the History of Science. He was the author of many books, including Science and the Founding Fathers: Science in the Political Thought of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and James Madison; The Science of Benjamin Franklin; Revolution in Science; The Newtonian Revolution; The Birth of a New Physics; and, with Anne Whitman, Isaac Newtonís Principia: A New Translation of Newtonís Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. He edited several series of works, including Harvard Monographs in the History of Science, Three Centuries of Science in America, and the ongoing Studies & Texts in the History of Computing. He was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal Astronomical Society, the British Academy, and the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.
Content
- Cover
- Title
- Contents
- Foreword
- 1. A World of Numbers
- Numbers Everywhere
- Numbers in History
- Numbers in the Bible: The Sin of King David
- Consequences of David's Sin
- 2. New Worlds Based on Numbers
- Kepler's Harmonic Law
- Galileo and the Laws of Motion
- Numbers in the Life Sciences: Does the Blood Circulate?
- A First Exercise in Demography: How Many People Can the Earth Support?
- The Need for Life Tables
- A New World of Numbers
- Sir William Petty and Political Arithmetic
- 3. Numerology and Mystic Philosophy: Scientists at Play with Numbers
- What's in a Name? Converting Names into Numbers
- Numerology in Science
- A Crusader against Numerological Superstitions
- 4. Numbers in the Age of Reason
- Hutcheson's Moral Arithmetic
- Hale's Numerical Plant and Animal Science
- Thomas Jefferson: A Life Regulated by Numbers
- Benjamin Franklin and Numbers
- Franklin and Malthus
- Franklin on Numbers and Smallpox
- 5. New Uses for Numbers
- Numbers and Measures
- A Concern with Numbers in France: Lavoisier's Essay on Political Arithmetic
- Sir John Sinclair's Census of Scotland
- Pinel's Medical Numbers
- Louis and the Numerical Method
- New Uses for Numbers: Innovations by Condorcet and Laplace
- 6. A Deluge of Statistics
- Tables Galore
- Guerry's Studies of Crime
- 7. Statistics Reaches Maturity: The Age of Quetelet
- Numbers, Number Science, and Joyce's Ulysses
- Quetelet's World of Numbers
- The Budget of Crimes
- The Reliability of Statistics
- Comte versus Quetelet: Social Physics, or Sociology?
- What Did Quetelet Accomplish?
- 8. Critics of Statistics
- Carlyle and Chartism
- Dickens and Statistics
- The Mudfog Association for the Advancement of Everything
- "Death's Ciphering Book"
- Corresponding Disdain
- Facts and Figures: The Message of Hard Times
- 9. Florence Nightingale
- Sanitary Reform: The Evidence of the Numbers
- A Passion for Statistics
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Literature List
- Index
- Also by I. Bernard Cohen
- Copyright
