The Weight of Things. Quantification of Matter and the Exchange of Technical and Learned Knowledge in Early Modern Europe.

该项目研究了近代早期物质的量化，重点是比重的概念。在给定的体积下，不同的物质可以通过它们的重量或比重来识别。许多早期的现代实验学家，包括伽利略·伽利莱、弗朗西斯·培根和约翰内斯·开普勒，都把这个看似不起眼的原理视为理解自然的基本关键。人们为各种各样令人眼花缭乱的材料寻找特定的重力，从象牙、磁石、黄金到牛角、羊血或小牛的大脑。然而，在16世纪和17世纪早期，这个概念不仅对自然哲学家和数学家至关重要。事实上，一群形形色色的早期现代专家对它产生了兴趣，包括乐器制造商、古物学家、人文主义者、炼金术士、耶稣会士和军事工程师。这项研究将首次对这个丰富的文化和技术环境进行全面调查。它将分析这些专家使用特定重力的背景和他们之间的知识转移。它将为这些实践者和学者群体是如何联系在一起提供新的见解。该项目将侧重于学术著作中对比重的讨论，以及从文本、表格和数学工具中得出的比重的数值确定。这些数据将用于研究跨地理区域、时间段和学科领域的特定重力知识的确定、使用、传播和转让。特别是，这项研究将分析在战争艺术和金匠贸易等领域使用的数学工具。这些资源将允许研究的时间和背景的文本来源是不可用的。该项目的这一部分将与拥有丰富历史乐器收藏的欧洲主要博物馆合作开发。该项目将特别探讨应用和学习形式的知识之间的关系，这是早期现代科学新史学中的一个关键问题。通过重新定义我们对近代早期物质量化的理解，本项目将为实验科学的起源和发展提供新的视角，并为人文科学与科学之间的历史关系的讨论开辟新的视角。

This project investigates the quantification of matter in the Early Modern period, focusing on the notion of specific gravity. At a given volume, different substances can be identified by their particular weight, or specific gravity. Numerous early modern experimentalists, including Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon and Johannes Kepler, viewed this seemingly humble principle as a fundamental key to the understanding of nature in general. Specific gravities were sought for a bewildering variety of materials, ranging from ivory, loadstone, and gold to ox horn, sheep blood or calves' brains. However, during the sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century, this notion came to be crucial not only for natural philosophers and mathematicians. In fact, a heterogeneous group of early modern experts became interested in it, including instrument makers, antiquarians, humanists, alchemists, Jesuits and military engineers. This study will provide the first full investigation of this rich cultural and technical environment. It will analyze the contexts in which these experts used specific gravities and the knowledge transfer among them. It will provide new insight into how these groups of practitioners and scholars were connected.The project will focus on both discussions of specific gravities in learned works, and numerical determinations of specific gravities derived from texts, tables, and mathematical instruments. These data will be employed to study the determination, use, diffusion and transfer of knowledge on specific gravities across geographical areas, time periods and subject domains. In particular, this research will analyze mathematical instruments used in fields like the art of warfare and the goldsmith trade. These sources will permit the study of time periods and contexts for which textual sources are not available. This part of the project will be developed in collaboration with major European museums holding rich collections of historical instruments. The project will especially explore the relationship between applied and learned forms of knowledge, a crucial issue in the new historiography of early modern science. By redefining our understanding of the quantification of matter in the early modern period, this project will shed new light on the origins and development of experimental science in general, and open new perspectives for the discussion of the historical relation between humanities and sciences.