Dark, clowdy and impertinent’ – Thomas Browne’s scientific language

View Dark, clowdy and impertinent’ – Thomas Browne’s scientific language

Presenter: Claire Preston

Published: March 2013

Age: 14-19 and upwards

Views: 701 views

Tags: linguistics;words;scientific;

Type: Lectures

Source/institution: Royal Society


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Succulent, cretaceous, technology, parasitical, electricity . . . Scientific investigation in the seventeenth century generated new ideas, and scientists needed new words to express them. Experimentalists, observers, collectors, and technicians all contributed to a supple descriptive language for the new science and its related disciplines. Claire Preston is Professor of Early-Modern Literature at the University of Birmingham.