Overview
My research interests in the history of science have been quite varied over the years; they include the history of chemistry and allied sciences in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Crystals and Compounds, 1976), the history of chemical technology, focusing on munitions and explosives and the history of parapsychology and marginal science (The Elusive Science: Origins of Experimental Psychical Research, with Michael R. McVaugh, 1980). I have edited two books reflective of these different interests: The Reception of Unconventional Science (1979) and Chemical Sciences in the Modern World (1993). In 2006, I received the Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award.
Current Appointments & Affiliations
Professor Emeritus of History
·
2011 - Present
History,
Trinity College of Arts & Sciences
Recent Publications
Richard Kirwan's phlogiston theory: its success and fate.
Journal Article Ambix · November 2002 First proposed in the early 1780s, Richard Kirwan's phlogiston theory was the most successful enunciation of the English pneumatic approach to phlogiston. Phlogiston was identified with a material substance, inflammable air. In this paper, I explore the na ... Full text Cite'From an Instrument of War to an Instrument of the Laboratory: The Affinities Certainly Do not Change' Chemists and the Development of Munitionsm 1785-1885
Journal Article Bulletin for the History of Chemistry · 1999 CiteRecent Grants
Symposium: Between Text and Patient: The Medical Enterprise in Medieval and Early Modern Europe
ConferencePrincipal Investigator · Awarded by Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation · 2007 - 2007Support for the Triangle Workshop in the History of Science, Medicine and Technology
ConferencePrincipal Investigator · Awarded by Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation · 1995 - 1995Triangle Workshop in the History of Science, Medicine and Technology
ConferencePrincipal Investigator · Awarded by Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation · 1994 - 1995View All Grants
Education, Training & Certifications
Princeton University ·
1966
Ph.D.
Princeton University ·
1963
M.A.
Cornell University ·
1960
B.A.