The spark of Enlightenment
The spark of Enlightenment
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DOI：
10.1038/424999a
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发表时间：
2003-08
期刊：
影响因子：
64.8
通讯作者：
Lucio Fregonese
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Lucio Fregonese
亚历山德罗·沃尔塔（Alessandro Volta，1745-1827）是一位著名的自然哲学家，他在电学、化学和物理学等领域做出了重大贡献。他著名的电池对现代性的兴起做出了决定性的贡献。潘卡尔迪的书是一本在启蒙文化背景下的沃尔塔科学传记。作者考察了沃尔特传记的核心方面，包括他的教育和宗教态度，并追溯了他在当地和国际上运作的社会和科学网络的生动画面。资料来源包括伏打的信件、意大利主要的科学期刊以及他多次旅行与其他学者会面和交谈的幸存信息。重点主要是伏打在静电方面的工作（1765-1787）以及他发明电池的漫长道路的高级阶段（1796-1799）。理想情况下，这两项成就应该与他在其他科学领域的工作一起考虑，但我们知识的部分状态证明了这种选择性方法的合理性。Pancaldi对Volta静电的解释基于尖锐的两极分化，突出了“实验和仪器而不是理论，工具主义而不是深刻的哲学承诺，功效和公众认可而不是个人成就”。并非所有的历史学家或科学哲学家都同意这种激进的认识论和历史学假设。在讨论这里展示的伏打晚年的肖像时，潘卡尔迪挑出了三个要素--理论、实验和仪器，以及公众的支持--
Alessandro Volta (1745–1827) was a leading natural philosopher who made significant contributions to fields as diverse as electricity, chemistry and pneumatics. His famous electrical battery contributed decisively to the rise of modernity. Pancaldi’s book is a scientific biography of Volta within the context of Enlightenment culture. The author examines central aspects of Volta’s biography, including his education and religious attitudes, and traces a lively picture of the social and scientific networks, both local and international, in which he operated. The sources used include Volta’s correspondence, the main Italian scientific journals and the surviving information on the many journeys he made to meet and talk with other scholars.The focus is mainly on Volta’s work on static electricity (1765–1787) and the advanced stages (1796–1799) ofthe long path that took him to the invention of the battery. Ideally, these two achievements should be considered alongside his work in other scientific fields, but the partial state of our knowledge justifies this selective approach. Pancaldi’s interpretation of Volta’s static electricity rests on a sharp polarization, which gives prominence to “experiment and apparatus over theory, instrumentalism over deep philosophical commitment, efficacy and public recognition over private achievement”. Not all historians or philosophers of science will agree with such radical epistemological and historiographic assumptions. In discussing the portrait of Volta in old age shown here, Pancaldi singles out three of the elements—theory, experiment and apparatus, and public recognition—that