Scientific Explanation and the Emergence of Theoretical Chemistry: The Manchester and Paris Schools

影响现代科学发展的因素有很多。推动某一特定学科发展的不仅有智力因素，还有邻近领域的影响，科学所处的哲学环境，以及影响研究方向、使用方法和选择要解决的问题的制度和社会因素。奈教授在研究本世纪初理论化学的发展时，正在研究这整个复杂的影响。具体来说，她正在研究19世纪和20世纪物理和化学之间的相互作用；现代物理科学解释的目的，特别是化学解释与物理学解释的本质对比；以及20世纪“理论化学”的出现。她通过科学的概念史和科学的社会史来研究这些问题，分析化学教科书、专著和论文中的解释和理论；以及关于化学和物理的目的和方法的科学对应和陈述；以及实验室和研究学校的记录和历史。作为一个更大项目中的详细案例研究，她正在研究物理有机化学的历史发展方面，重点是1880年至1950年期间的法国和英国。这个案例研究比较了两所不同的研究型学校，跨越了三代，一个与伦敦和曼彻斯特的培训有松散的联系，另一个与巴黎的高等师范学院（Ecole Normale Superieure）的教育有关。

There are many different factors which affect the development of modern science. Not only are there the intellectual factors which drive a particular discipline, but there are also influences of adjacent fields, the philosophical milieu in which the science is imbedded, and the institutional and social factors which influence the direction of research, the methods to be used, and the selection of problems to be addressed. Professor Nye is examining this whole complex of influences in her study of the development of theoretical chemistry at the turn of this century. Specifically, she is looking at the interactions between physics and chemistry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the aims of explanation in the modern physical sciences, especially the nature of chemical explanation in contrast to explanation in physics; and the emergence in the twentieth century of a "theoretical chemistry." She is approaching these problems through both the conceptual history of science and the social history of science, analyzing explanations and theories in chemical textbooks, monographs and papers; as well as scientific correspondence and statements on the aims and methods of chemistry and physics; and records and histories of laboratories and research schools. As a detailed case study within the larger project, she is working on a study of aspects of the historical development of physical organic chemistry with emphasis on France and England from roughly 1880- 1950. This case study compares two distinct research schools, over three generations, one loosely associated with training in London and Manchester and the second with education at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris.