[Air-L] 18th century algorithms

[Barry Wellman]

Met Sara and her work today. Seemed fascinating and germane.

Multiple Independent Inventions of a Non-Functional Technology: 
Combinatorial Descriptive Names in Botany, 1640-1830
Sara Scharf

Abstract

Historians and sociologists of science usually discuss multiple 
independent inventions or multiple independent discoveries in terms of 
priority disputes among the inventors. But what should we make of the 
multiple invention of a technology that not only gave rise to very few 
priority disputes, but never worked and was rejected by each inventor’s 
contemporaries as soon as it was made public? This paper examines seven 
such situations in the history of botany. I devote particular attention to 
the inventors’ cultural and educational backgrounds, in particular, the 
scholastic education most of them shared, through which they would have 
become familiar with Llullian combinatorics and the mnemonic names used to 
distinguish syllogistic moods. I also examine their conceptions of the 
roles of nomenclature in botany, their assumptions about how memory works, 
their awareness of other similar efforts, and their contemporaries’ 
reactions to their proposals. Finally, I reflect on the impacts that a 
consideration of multiple independent inventions of failed technologies 
may have on current approaches to the history and sociology of science.

http://spontaneousgenerations.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/SpontaneousGenerations/article/viewArticle/3552


  Barry Wellman
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   S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC               NetLab Director
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   University of Toronto  Toronto Canada M5S 2J4   twitter:@barrywellman
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   NETWORKED:The New Social Operating System. Lee Rainie & Barry Wellman
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