William R. Newman

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William R. Newman

William Royall Newman (born March 13, 1955 ) is an American historian of science specializing in alchemy and early chemistry.

Career

After receiving a bachelor's degree in the history of science from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro , he received his PhD from Harvard University in 1986 with John E. Murdoch . During this time he was also with Robert Halleux at the University of Liège . He then taught at Stonehill College, was a tutor in the history of science department at Harvard University and, from 1996, professor at Indiana University . He was a visiting scholar at the Dibner Institute .

He is particularly known for examining the corpus of writings attributed to the Arabic alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyān (Geber) and for working out the independent position of the Latin pseudo-giver , whose Summa Perfectionis , which was influential in the Middle Ages, was published in a critical edition. Another focus is the alchemy of the early modern times, for example George Starkey , a London alchemist with origins from New England, who received his doctorate at Harvard in 1646, and his identification with Irenäus Philalethes . With Lawrence M. Principe , he published Starkey's lab books and examined his relationship with Robert Boyle , advocating greater consideration of Starkey versus Boyle in the history of the dawn of modern chemistry. In relation to early chemistry and its fuzzy demarcation from alchemy, which was also often used as a derogatory label in the 18th century, they advocate the term chymistry . Newman also dealt with atomistic ideas that penetrated the early natural sciences from alchemy (such as the corpuscular theory of pseudo-giver, influence of the reinterpretation of the Tabula Smaragdina by Johannes Trithemius on Sendivogius' doctrine of the airborne philosophical salt).

In 1982 he received the JR Partington Prize of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry, 1989 the Alexandre Koyré Prize of the International Academy of the History of Science , in 2005 with Lawrence M. Principe the Pfizer Prize of the History of Science Society (for Alchemy tried in fire over Starkey and Boyle) and the 2013 HIST Award from the American Chemical Society.

Together with Principe he is the supervisor of an online project on the alchemy of Isaac Newton (The Chymistry of Isaac Newton), which aims to make his laboratory books publicly available.

Corresponding member of the International Academy of the History of Science since 2005, he was elected full member ( Membre Effectif ) in 2015. He was also a Guggenheim Fellow .

Fonts

Books:

  • Atoms and Alchemy: Chymistry and the Experimental Origins of the Scientific Revolution , Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006
  • Editor with Lawrence M. Principe: George Starkey: Alchemical Laboratory Notebooks and Correspondence , Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2004
  • Promethean Ambitions: Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect Nature , Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004
  • with Lawrence M. Principe: Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle, and the Fate of Helmontian Chymistry , Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002
  • Contributions in Claus Priesner , Karin Figala : Alchemy. Lexicon of a Hermetic Science, Beck 1998
  • Newton the alchemist , Princeton University Press 2018

As editor:

  • Editor with Anthony Grafton: Secrets of Nature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe , MIT Press, 2001
  • Editor with Christoph Lüthy, John E. Murdoch: Late Medieval and Early Modern Corpuscular Matter Theories , Leiden: EJ Brill, 2001
  • Gehennical Fire: The Lives of George Starkey, An American Alchemist in the Scientific Revolution , Harvard University Press 1994, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003
  • Editor with Edith Dudley Sylla: Evidence and Interpretation: Studies on Early Science and Medicine in Honor of John E. Murdoch , Leiden: Brill 2009
  • Editor with Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent: The Artificial and The Natural: An Evolving Polarity , MIT Press 2007
  • Editor: The 'Summa Perfectionis' of Pseudo-Geber. A critical edition, translation and study. , EJ Brill, Leiden / New York / Copenhagen / Cologne 1991

Some essays:

  • New Light on the Identity of Geber, Sudhoffs Archive for the History of Medicine and Natural Sciences, Volume 69, 1985, pp. 76-90
  • The Genesis of the Summa perfectionis, Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences , Volume 35, 1985, pp. 240-302.
  • with LM Principe: Alchemy vs. Chemistry: The Etymological Origins of a Historiographic Mistake, Early Science and Medicine, Volume 3, 1998, pp. 32-65
  • Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy, in Newman, Grafton (Ed.), Secrets of Nature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe, MIT Press, 2001, pp. 385-431.
  • The Significance of "Chymical Atomism" , in Sylla, Newman (Ed.): Evidence and Interpretation: Studies on Early Science and Medicine in Honor of John E. Murdoch, Leiden: Brill, 2009, pp. 248-264.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry in the Academy's directory of members.

Web links


personal data
SURNAME Newman, William R.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Newman, William Royall
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American chemical historian
DATE OF BIRTH March 13, 1955