The Ambiguous Frog
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The Ambiguous Frog
Author: Marcello Pera
language: en
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Release Date: 2014-07-14
How do ideas become accepted by the scientific community? How and why do scientists choose among empirically equivalent theories? In this pathbreaking book translated from the Italian, Marcello Pera addresses these questions by exploring the politics, rhetoric, scientific practices, and metaphysical assumptions that entered into the famous Galvani-Volta controversy of the late eighteenth century. This lively debate erupted when two scientists, each examining the muscle contractions of a dissected frog in contact with metal, came up with opposing but experimentally valid explanations of the phenomenon. Luigi Galvani, a doctor and physiologist, believed that he had discovered animal electricity (electrical body fluid existing naturally in a state of disequilibrium), while the physicist Alessandro Volta attributed the contractions to ordinary physical electricity. Beginning with the electrical concepts understood by scientists in the 1790s, Pera traces the careers of Galvani and Volta and explains their laboratory procedures. He shows that their controversy derived from two basic, irreducible interpretations of the proper nature of a common domain: Galvani saw the frog phenomenon as the work of biological organs, Volta as that of a physical apparatus. The initial preference for Volta's theory, maintains Pera, depended not on clear-cut methodological rules, but on a dialectical dispute for which the renowned physicist was better equipped, partly because he shared the dominant metaphysical views of his time. Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Frog
As Kermit the Frog taught us—it’s not easy being green. With good reason, since you’ll likely be dissected in biology class or have your legs gobbled up by a hungry Frenchman. And yet, these slimy creatures have captured our imagination, appearing in everything from fairytales about frog princes to Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Jeremy Fisher and Arnold Lebel’s Frog and Toad. They even appear as a tasty chocolate snack in the Harry Potter series. Examining the significant role played by this slippery amphibian in art, literature, and popular culture, Charlotte Sleigh gives us an entertaining—and sometimes shocking—account of this both loved and misunderstood animal. Weaving the natural history of the frog together with its mythology, this witty book answers questions like why frogs have been so prominent in science throughout the years and what place the frog holds in religion. Sleigh also explores the frog’s many faces—the devilish and comic, sophisticated and chauvinist, the revolting and delicious. Featuring many images of frogs from nature and culture, Frog—the fiftieth entry into the Animal series—will draw pet owners, frog-leg devourers, and seekers of princes alike.
Shocking Frogs
Author: Marco Piccolino
language: en
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Release Date: 2013-10-04
"... and still we could never suppose that fortune were to be so friendly to us, such as to allow us to be perhaps the first in handling, as it were, the electricity concealed in nerves, in extracting it from nerves, and, in some way, in putting it under everyone's eyes." With these words, Luigi Galvani announced to the world in 1791 his discovery that nervous conduction and muscle excitation are electrical phenomena. The result of more than years of intense experimental work, Galvani's milestone achievement concluded a thousand-year scientific search, in a field long dominated by the antiquated beliefs of classical science. Besides laying the grounds for the development of the modern neurosciences, Galvani's discovery also brought to light an invention that would forever change humankind's everyday life: the electric battery of Alessandro Volta. In an accessible style, written for specialists and general readers alike, Shocking Frogs retraces the steps of both scientific discoveries, starting with the initial hypotheses of the Enlightenment on the involvement of electricity in life processes. So doing, it also reveals the inconsistency of the many stereotypes that an uncritical cultural tradition has imparted to the legacies of Galvani and Volta, and proposes a decidedly new image of these monumental figures.