The Emergence of Symbolic Notation and Data Visualization in Algebra and Chemistry

代数和化学中符号表示法和数据可视化的出现

• 批准号: 1754788
• 负责人: Pamela Smith
• 金额: $ 1.57万
• 依托单位: Columbia University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-02-01 至 2020-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1754788&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Emergence; Symbolic; Notation; Data; Visualization

This award supports doctoral dissertation research in history of science that focuses on the use of mathematical and chemical symbolism. Such notation is currently regarded as essential to scientific work. By contrast, for much of Western European history, the use of symbols in science was not regarded as a suitable approach. However, by the nineteenth century, symbolic notation had become ubiquitous. This project's objective is to explain why European scientists came to see symbolic notation as credible during the early modern period. To identify when and how scientists used symbolic notations, the researcher will study scientific manuscripts, where the exigencies of publishing did not constrain the use of symbols. These include mathematicians' and chemists' notebooks, apothecaries' inventories, doctors' records, and manuscript textbooks, all of which are unique and un-digitized. The results of this project will shape how symbolic notation and visual thinking are understood by historians of science and more broadly. They will show the limits of historical methodologies that invest too heavily in a distinction between language and image; symbolic notations were powerful precisely because they blurred the line between these two domains. More broadly, they will show how effective design can be improved through consideration of visual objects that are not admitted under a strict definition of data visualization. Finally, they will be disseminated to secondary students through lesson plans and classroom tools created by the researcher, a former high school instructor, to provide another means by which teachers can provoke interest in STEM fields, and to show students that the union of the sciences and humanities can lead to productive thinking.By examining how symbolic notations came to be seen as credible during the early modern period, this project presents a deeper historical understanding of how "visual thinking" and data visualization developed. Today, diagrams, drawings, charts, and pictures are indispensable tools for displaying data and identifying patterns within that data. However, the ancient and medieval methods of scientific reasoning that early modern scientists inherited were fundamentally verbal, and some scientific traditions distrusted images altogether. The epistemological validity of visual thinking therefore had to be proved. This project posits that symbolic notations played a crucial role in that process during the early modern period. Because symbolic notations could be seen as either linguistic or pictorial, they gave scientists a way of experimenting with visual thinking while still being able to characterize it as verbal thinking. Symbolic notations, in other words, served as a conduit through which the validity of visual proof could be established by means of an appeal to verbal proof. Moreover, it is argued that, over time, as scientists became accustomed to the advantages of visual thinking afforded by symbolic notations, they became bolder in their experiments with other visual tools like diagrams, charts, and graphs. This project thus demonstrates an underappreciated legacy of the Scientific Revolution: namely, that the legitimization of visual thinking in science was predicated upon the development and application of symbolic notations.

该奖项支持科学史的博士论文研究，重点是数学和化学符号的使用。这种符号目前被认为是科学工作所必需的。相比之下，在西欧历史的大部分时间里，在科学中使用符号并不被认为是一种合适的方法。然而，到了世纪，符号记谱法已经变得无处不在。这个项目的目的是解释为什么欧洲科学家在近代早期认为符号记谱法是可信的。为了确定科学家何时以及如何使用符号标记，研究人员将研究科学手稿，其中出版的紧迫性并没有限制符号的使用。这些包括数学家和化学家的笔记本、药剂师的库存、医生的记录和手稿教科书，所有这些都是独特的和未数字化的。这个项目的结果将塑造科学史学家和更广泛地理解符号符号和视觉思维的方式。他们将展示历史方法论的局限性，这些方法论过于注重语言和图像之间的区别;符号之所以强大，正是因为它们模糊了这两个领域之间的界限。更广泛地说，他们将展示如何通过考虑在数据可视化的严格定义下不被承认的视觉对象来改进有效的设计。最后，通过由研究者（前高中教师）创建的教案和课堂工具，向中学生传播它们，为教师提供另一种激发STEM领域兴趣的手段，并向学生展示科学和人文的结合可以带来富有成效的思考。通过研究符号符号在近代早期如何被视为可信的，这个项目展示了对“视觉思维”和数据可视化如何发展的更深层次的历史理解。今天，图表、绘图、图表和图片是显示数据和识别数据中模式的不可或缺的工具。然而，早期现代科学家继承的古代和中世纪的科学推理方法基本上是口头的，一些科学传统完全不信任图像。因此，必须证明视觉思维的认识论有效性。这个项目假定，符号符号在现代早期的这一过程中发挥了至关重要的作用。因为符号既可以被看作是语言的，也可以被看作是图像的，它们给了科学家一种实验视觉思维的方法，同时仍然能够将其描述为语言思维。换句话说，符号符号充当了一种管道，通过这种管道，视觉证据的有效性可以通过诉诸口头证据来确立。此外，有人认为，随着时间的推移，科学家们习惯了符号符号所提供的视觉思维的优势，他们在使用其他视觉工具（如图表，图表和图形）的实验中变得更加大胆。因此，这个项目展示了科学革命的一个未被充分重视的遗产：即科学中视觉思维的合法化是基于符号符号的发展和应用。