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Giovanni Battista Benedetti is counted as one of the most brilliant mathematical and philosophical minds of the late Italian Renaissance. However, the theoretical and historical relevance of his work is still obscure in many respects. This is due to several factors, principal among which is the relative rarity of his major work, Diversarum speculationum mathematicarum et physicarum liber (Book including various mathematical and physical speculations), 1585. This work was a major contribution to Renaissance science, especially due to its insights on mechanics, the mathematical approach to natural investigation, and the connection of celestial and terrestrial dynamics in a post-Copernican perspective. The first edition was an elegant folio, which includes heterogeneous writings not only on mathematics and physics but also on technical and philosophical issues. Benedetti presented these as short treatises or letters addressed to gentlemen, courtiers, scholars, engineers, and practitioners of different arts. The Diversae speculationes appeared in a series of prestigious volumes aimed at celebrating the magnificence of the court and the capital. It aimed to make the quality of the court mathematician’s research and skills publicly appreciable. It also bore witness to the intensity of the cultural debates going on in Turin or connecting it with other centers, especially Venice. This open access edition makes the Benedetti’s work accessible to a large scholarly readership. In the extensive introduction, his achievement is presented in its rich complexity. Benedetti is emblematic of his time and of the non-linearity of the historical process of Renaissance science with its multicentric institutions and scientific networks. The apparent fragmentary nature of his work hides a fundamental unity of the conception and the method, both of which rest on geometry. Benedetti regarded mechanics as a model, but he enlarged his perspective to include the most varied fields of investigation and concretely to demonstrate the fruitfulness of his approach to universal knowledge, astronomy, physics, meteorology, and even to ethics. Edition Open Sources (EOS) pioneers a new paradigm in the publishing of historical sources. Academic editions of primary sources in the history of science are published in online, digital, and print formats that present facsimiles, transcriptions, and often translations of original works with an introduction to the author, the text, and the context in which it was written. The sources are historical books, manuscripts, documents, or other archival materials that are otherwise difficult to access. EOS is a cooperation between the University of Oklahoma Libraries, the Department for the History of Science der University of Oklahoma, and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science.

MPRL --- Edition Open Access --- history of science

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Today scientific, technological and cultural knowledge is shared worldwide. The extent to which globalized knowledge also existed in the past is an open question and, moreover, a question that is important for understanding present processes of globalization. This book, the first volume of the series "Studies" of the "Max Planck Research Library for the History and Development of Knowledge," the result of an interdisciplinary cooperation launched in 2007 by a Dahlem Conference, offers surprising answers to this question. Long-distance and intercontinental connections with an attendant spread of knowledge are as old as Homo sapiens themselves. Since its inception, the globalization of knowledge has been a process with its own dynamics, interfering significantly with other processes of intercultural transmission. The four parts of this volume address historical phases in which the production, transmission and transformation of knowledge were crucial for advancing these processes. Part 1 investigates a series of processes in the very early phases of globalization, from the transmission of practical knowledge to the emergence of science. Part 2 explores how knowledge was disseminated as a consequence of the spread of power and belief structures. Part 3 deals with the encounters between culturally specific knowledge and globalized knowledge. Part 4 is dedicated to the globalization of modern science and to the great challenges, such as energy supply and climate change, that humanity faces when dealing with knowledge today The 97th Dahlem Workshop: The present volume is based on the 97th Dahlem Workshop on Globalization of Knowledge and its Consequences, Berlin, 18–23 November 2007, coordinated by Katharina Ochse. Participants: Ian Baldwin, Angelo Baracca, Fabio Bevilacqua, Maria Emilia Beyer, Hans-Peter Blossfeld, Gianluca Bocchi, István M. Bodnár, Jens Erland Braarvig, Chiara Brambilla, Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum, Jacob Dahl, Peter Damerow, Hansjörg Dilger, Kostas Gavroglu, Matteo Gerlini, Denise Gimpel, Gerd Graßhoff, Hans Falk Hoffmann, Dirk Hofäcker, Jarita C. Holbrook, Malcolm D. Hyman, Birgit Krawietz, Manfred Krebernik, Joachim Kurtz, Manolis Patiniotis, Albert Presas I Puig, Daniel T. Potts, Dhruv Raina, Jürgen Renn, Richard Rottenburg, Dagmar Schäfer, Matthias Schemmel, Mark Schiefsky, Meredith Schuman, Gebhard J. Selz, Martina Siebert, Circe Mary Silva da Silva, Ana Simões, Tzveta Sofronieva, Saran Solongo, Karin Tybjerg, Hans Ulrich Vogel, Milena Wazeck, Gerhard Wolf, Harriet T. Zurndorfer

epistemology --- globalization --- science --- MPRL --- global history --- Edition Open Access --- interdisciplinary research --- history of science --- knowledge

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This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 2.5 license. On April 22, 1915, the German military released 150 tons of chlorine gas at Ypres, Belgium. Carried by a long-awaited wind, the chlorine cloud passed within a few minutes through the British and French trenches, leaving behind at least 1,000 dead and 4,000 injured. This chemical attack, which amounted to the first use of a weapon of mass destruction, marks a turning point in world history. The preparation as well as the execution of the gas attack was orchestrated by Fritz Haber, the director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry in Berlin-Dahlem. During World War I, Haber transformed his research institute into a center for the development of chemical weapons (and of the means of protection against them). Bretislav Friedrich and Martin Wolf (Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, the successor institution of Haber’s institute) together with Dieter Hoffmann, Jürgen Renn, and Florian Schmaltz (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science) organized an international symposium to commemorate the centenary of the infamous chemical attack. The symposium examined crucial facets of chemical warfare from the first research on and deployment of chemical weapons in WWI to the development and use of chemical warfare during the century hence. The focus was on scientific, ethical, legal, and political issues of chemical weapons research and deployment — including the issue of dual use — as well as the ongoing effort to control the possession of chemical weapons and to ultimately achieve their elimination. The volume consists of papers presented at the symposium and supplemented by additional articles that together cover key aspects of chemical warfare from 22 April 1915 until the summer of 2015.

History. --- Military history. --- Politics and war. --- Chemistry --- Research --- System safety. --- International humanitarian law. --- History of Military. --- Military and Defence Studies. --- History of Chemistry. --- Research Ethics. --- International Humanitarian Law, Law of Armed Conflict. --- Security Science and Technology. --- Humanitarian conventions --- International humanitarian law --- War (International law) --- Safety, System --- Safety of systems --- Systems safety --- Accidents --- Industrial safety --- Systems engineering --- Research ethics --- War --- War and politics --- Military historiography --- Military history --- Wars --- Historiography --- History --- Naval history --- Annals --- Auxiliary sciences of history --- Moral and ethical aspects. --- Prevention --- Political aspects --- Chemistry-History. --- Research-Moral and ethical aspec. --- Chemistry—History. --- Research—Moral and ethical aspects. --- Anti-plant Chemical Warfare --- Weapons of Mass Destruction --- Military-Industrial Complex --- Ethics of Chemical Warfare --- Fritz Haber --- Lethal Unitary Chemical Agents and Munitions --- Chemical Weapons in the Middle East --- Dual-use Problem --- Chemical Weapons During World War II --- 1925 Geneva Protocol --- Chemical Weapons During World War I